Junkie
by shelter
Summary: The work has been FINISHED! The final days of a human community on Solbrecht ends, and the time of the Titan begins. Will Iris find a way out of the chaos? Read it with your own eyes then tell me what you think.
1. Prologue

**Junkie**

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I don't own Titan A.E, or any of the characters in it. They belong to Don Bluth and Fox Animation Studios. Several characters have been taken from 'Titan A.E – Akima's Story' by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. All my names, characters and settings, though, belong to me.    _

**_Authors' note_**_: I've returned. I think it's been quite a while since I have properly sat down and pondered something about Titan A.E, and now that I have, my story seems to have changed and my ideas evolved. It took a while, really, for me to get my writing back on track, but I could say it was well worth it. _

_Perhaps you'd be surprised if you read a story of mine that wasn't about principles or religion or militancy, but I have to say the freedom of writing whatever you chose is surely a wonderful thing. As is the inspiration that got me down to write. So this story is written for Dawn Ashai and her Titan A.E site, Kristina Ivanova from Cirque Du Soleil's Alegria, Haiwolfe, and all the Titan A.E fanfiction writers (Arrow Tibbs, Tigrin), whose little pieces and details gave me inspiration. I certainly hope though, not to bore you with this story, or with this introduction; this is my story, I don't know what you think of it, but I thank you for stopping to read. _

Prologue 

At first the news brought shock and fear to the citizens of Solbrecht; as much as they didn't have much concern for the humans, the extent in which the Drej were willing to eradicate an entire race was worrying. Not only that, but both planets and their inhabitants were startlingly similar in several small but obvious ways. Solbrecht had benefited much trade between systems, and Earth's was among their old trading partners. It was agreed, too, that both Earth and Solbrecht were at the peak of their history at the time. 

            But soon the realisation dawned; it seemed unlikely the Drej were interested in technology, especially when they had developed a much superior form of their own. It seemed less possible they were after wealth of any kind, apart from pure energy to fulfill their most basic requirements. So as the days went by following Earth's destruction, so did the life of the citizens of Solbrecht. Earth, after all, seemed too far away. 

            Little by little, though, the destruction of Earth would slowly bring about change in several ways. Soon the mere mention of the Drej was too be silenced and its name feared. Other systems were having problems with the Drej too, as they sought out any remnants of the race they had despised so much. Yet they were to disappear in oblivion months later. 

            And in 3028, five months after in Drej had wiped out the human planet, the refugees came. They came in numbers, seeking a new home in Solbrecht, and many were rejected. They eventually joined other colonies in space to continue their existence. But there were those who bought their entry or slipped into the planet. I have nothing against them personally; for years they have lived among the citizens of my planet and we have forgotten their presence since. 

- Solbrecht chancellor Fenreix


	2. Ghetto

**1. Ghetto**

_Replaced chapter one, thought I needed to get some things edited._

There are no seasons on Solbrecht; sometimes it rains for an hour or so, but much of the year is filled with a warm glow, the feel of a sun forever hidden behind clouds, its rays diffused and weak. But today the flagstones are slippery and wet, the air saturated with dew. The windows in my room are frosted with condensed droplets of water.

                It has rained again during the night, and we know the time of the year. To everyone else on Solbrecht this day holds nothing special. But to us, in our calendar, it is the 25th of the twelfth month, the day of plenty. The day the elders call Christmas.   

                Somehow I feel a day of not going to school feels awkward. It's true we only have one teacher and all we learn is human history and language, but I find myself longing for my friends. I find that all this longing is making me soft; I cannot play now, especially when all I can think of are the people closest to in my life, when all I can think of is Iain's smile. If this was just a normal day, we'd be sitting together at the back of class strumming, his chords accompanying mine until we get so engrossed in the music that all we can do is sing. People say it is a gift, for us to make such beautiful music. Now, I strum but I produce screeches and nothing more than a useless din. Mother shouts at me to come down to help.        

                We are one of the lucky families to have a hearth; it is blazing with warm today, casting moving shadows on the wall opposite. Rainy days on Solbrecht can be bitterly cold. I rub my hands together and enter the kitchen where mother and Aunt Cheng are preparing the food. As they see me enter, Aunt Cheng never fails to praise me. She comments on how I've grown since I was little; then she will complain I am not feminine enough, and will hassle my mother about my slacks and my tank-top. True girls should be dressed decently, she says. She will tell of how she and Uncle Cheng used to dress, until Uncle was mobbed and killed – because he was human.  

                I make it past her pestering into the backyard that we have. The overnight rain has left tiny crystal drops on our plants. Michelle likes to grow them; since she is too young to help father, she grows all sorts of herbs in our small grass patch: rosemary, basil, pepper. All morning she has that sparkle in her eyes, a look of pride. I know because tonight her herbs will garnish our food and spice this special dinner.

                But she isn't at home now, and Mother's voice calls shrill from the kitchen, "Iris, what are you doing out there? Are you so free, ah, that you can lounge around?" She makes mistakes like all mothers sometimes. For the dinner I have been clearing the table and preparing the plates, borrowing wine from Jonathan and dough from Ershed.

                The smells of the food are tempting. But my mind is playing tricks on me, there'll be no food for tonight. It's a festive occasion! I wouldn't want to ruin it by eating it ahead of time. The smell of basil is drifting from the kitchen as Mother cooks the seasoned game meat. Years ago, when Earth was still around, people used to eat chicken and turkey and pork and veal. 

But we do not have such luxuries on Solbrecht; instead, the game meat is sizzled with basil, the _timkin_ flavoured with gravy and rosemary. But most importantly of all, is the family dish. A leg of _jhowel_ is roasting on a spit, with a smell enough to make any mouth water! We have cloves, cinnamon and pepper to make it taste even better, while Aunt Cheng is tying wildflower buds and chopping Solbrecht parsley to garnish the dish. Truly, Christmas is the best meal of the year.

                Peering through the kitchen door I can see Aunt Cheng doing our dish, and at the same time tending to the soup. On Solbrecht it is uncommon to find two families living in the same house. Aunt Cheng and my younger cousin Liwei live with us; they moved in shortly after Uncle died. Father bought this house long ago, so long that I can't even remember. 

                Aunt Cheng's actions come to a pause abruptly. She turns to Mother and asks, "Have you seen the youngsters?"

                "Did you send them out for an errand?" my mother responds, not knowing what to say. The day is still bright, and even without looking at a meter I know it is in still in the afternoon. But nowadays, you never know.

                "Iris," Mother orders, "Iris, go find the youngsters, and make sure, ah, you don't wander too far. Bring them back at once!"

                She always calls Michelle and Liwei 'youngsters'; I don't know for what reason, because Michelle is fourteen and Liwei a year younger. As for me, I am thankful I have graduated from my being a plural noun in Mother's vocabulary. Everyone know calls me Iris. They say I am old enough to help in Father's business. Everyone refers to me as Iris, daughter of Michael Lui, the moneychanger, and not Iris, the instrumentalist or anything like that. Though deep down I can play better than I can help my father.    

                As I reach the door, I don my jacket, not because I think it's cold, but because Aunt Cheng will reprimand me again about modesty if I don't. The brush one of the sleeves against the christmas tree at the door and I walk out onto the street.

                Our street is narrow, not anything like the broad avenues downtown lined with trees. The flagstones are slippery indeed; I fight hard to run and stand upright. Flanking both sides of the street are dwellings and doors, while clothes hung out to dry drip water down from above. The street curves several feet ahead, into the square, where you can see a main lane. I follow the path; there is an open door to my right: Jeffery's house. He used to be an engineer, until humans were forbidden to serve in the public service. He is a mechanic by nature and outside his door stands his polished, emerald green hover scooter.   

                Further down I pass the apothecary, where herbs and spices and flowers have been laid out on canvas sheets across my path. Alvin, the old herbalist, hardly lifts an eyebrow as I walk past. I stroll past Ershed's bakery, where he is still hard at work kneading dough and making bread. His pastries are so good, even the other, non-human inhabitants of Zyjushem buy from him. But the magistrates keep a close watch over his enterprise. They regulate our businesses: one baker, five other food-sellers, one teacher, two pilots, one medical physician and as many moneychangers as possible – best if they kill each other off with rivalry and competition.

                Doug Whiteman greets me from his perch atop his house; we all know Doug was once a soldier – long retired – who fought the Drej during the attack. He still wears his medals of bravery as a fond memory.  

                "Good evening, Iris," he calls out; I suspect he whistles at me behind my back, "Nice weather for a holiday, isn't it? But you never know…"

                "Yes… merry christmas," I say, putting on my most elaborate shrug.

                Outside the other homesteads I catch glimpses of the others. Rusty and Spike, both pilots, are frying a pan of greasy-looking liquid outside their father's store. They haul cargo three times a week to nearby planets but at home they are extra hands at the meat store. My teacher, Edric Niel, is talking to one of his sons at the porch of his house. Iain is not with him. A day without seeing him is sometimes unbearable for me. He smiles, and I give him the holiday greeting.             

                On the other side of the square are apartments which belong to the wealthier of us. Keane Greening owns a cargo ship and a reprocessing business; he is young, so he walks with a strut and wears dark glasses almost wherever he goes. Then there is the apartment of Marcel Perez; I know his daughter, Vanessa, as a tough, determined girl who wants to follow in her dead mother's footsteps and become a pilot. She built a shrine for her when we first got here. It's been in the cemetery ever since.

                At the end of the path, I peer down both sides of the road. Several crafts and nothing else. Beyond the road are the other neighbourhoods, Michelle wouldn't lead Liwei there, would she? Upon seeing they are nowhere in sight, I am compelled to cross the road and enter a different world.

                The Solbrecht natives live mainly downtown, so the outskirts are the less desirable places. These natives are a shrewd, cunning bunch, and I do my best to avoid them at all costs. But we are thankful, though grudgingly, for their tolerance. Here in the outskirts, we are just a race among a flood of other races, seeking Solbrecht as their home and hoping to make the best out of it. 

                I hurry through the choked streets. So many races live here that it is impossible to count them all. In this area, the street is paved with concrete and asphalt; street lamps line the shops where mechanics, engineers, warehouse keepers have set up their businesses. The dank stench of liquid fuel is in the air. It empties into the canal behind. Here I find a crowd, milling around a dark-skinned, well-built alien.

                His eyes are learned, and he wears a suit, so I expect he is a pilot. The neighbourhood will badger anyone who travels for news, for we are so isolated from everything that goes on around in universe, in Fauldro, in D'Armara and all the systems in the skies. They are just hungry for reports and gossip of any kind. This pilot, it seems, has obviously been places.

                "We saw them, I tell you," he gasps dramatically, "ships of pure energy and sizzling blue! They screech as they move, surround you when you try to evade them. Yes! They are the Drej! They destroyed a cargo ship near the Black Fields, I heard, but for what reason it still remains a mystery to us. Then were sighted near several slave colonies a few thousand flares from here!"  

                The crowd stirs nervously. They are as afraid of the Drej as everybody is. I try to blend in unnoticed, where I spot Michelle and Liwei, on the other side, listening to the stranger. 

                "What are you two doing here?" I demand, cross and urgent at my effort.

                Michelle sees me. "Hey, sis," she says. "No need to get angry, we were just listening to news and information from the pilots."

"Friends, fellow inhabitants, it is not too late," he continues, his voice stilling the crowd, "Don't provoke the Drej to anger or cross their path! They offer little kindness, even to those who fear them! We must watch whom we deal with and what our dealings are! Who knows? Maybe they will spare us if we follow these guidelines."

                Michelle frowns. "What that alien says is true, but nobody truly knows that the Drej want."

                "Whatever," I hiss at them hurriedly. "We have go home, now, before dark. Mother is worried."

                "Do you think the Drej will come to Solbrecht?" asks Liwei. "I mean, Black Fields seems so far way. And all of us are living so peacefully here."

                "You never know," Michelle answers him. "Frankly I don't want to know."

I know Michelle's got a wise answer. I heard Mr. Niel say she is working very hard in school and she understands great deal about why things work. I, however, was never good in economics. Mr. Niel says we all have different talents; I tend to be more music-inclined.

                "Come on, don't drift behind."

                We stroll past the huge offices of companies, the neighbourhood school, which is a hang spot of the younger ones here. I do not know many of them, and as Michelle has already said, I don't want to know. At the corner there is a restaurant, and as we walk past I hear a brawl and one huge, burly alien comes out. His face is red; he has been drinking.   

                At the sight of me in front of him he lets his choking breath exhale, as it hangs around him like noxious fumes. This is someone I know. He is Arhleus the Juniraxian; his species are built for strength, size and agility. 

                "It's you again, that human girl," he mutters, advancing towards me.       

"Michelle, Liwei, run NOW!" I command them. They dart past him and the wall, he is too focused on me to stop them. A crowd has gathered, watching, leering, waiting for some fun. I know why he looks at me this way. His friend isn't with him. Glein the Akrennian. I call him Glein the beast. 

                "Isn't this your night of blood?" he questions, staggering. I stand my ground, not daring to move.

                "Perhaps she's come to spy on us," comes a voice from the crowd behind me, "they are the cause for all our suffering anyway."

                A mistake; I keep myself focus now. Cautiously I step forward, and he lets me through, only when I pass does he seize my jacket and throws it to the ground.

                Suddenly the wind is cold and my face is flustered. As I bend down to pick up my jacket I see his foot over it, poised triumphantly. 

                "Please sir," I say. "My coat."

                I don't even see his other arm. It comes down as I bend to pick up the jacket, square on my back. I feel my heart in my mouth, my face burning red. And mud on my arms.

                Laughter echoes. But I get up and retrieve my jacket. Slowly, I walk out of his reach.

                "Vermin!" a voice yells.

                "Good riddance!"

                "Don't look at her, young ones, you will lose your sight."

                "They are the blood-drinkers, you know."  

                Dusk is almost upon me and I am thankful for it. As I walk towards my house, I know that nobody will see the mud on my arms, the dirtied jacket and the redness of shame on my face.

                In the house all is warm; a cackling fire is burning in the hearth and the aroma of spice fills the air. Father has returned from his day's work at the docking port, tired but glad for the feat we will have. Before Aunt Cheng notices, I brush the caked mud from my arms, warming myself near the fire as the skies outside darken for the night. 

                At last, the family gathers. I have never seen such a feast, such a banquet meant for this occasion. The season of plenty, Aunt Cheng calls it, to remember all the good times we once had on Earth. The Timkin and Jhowel are spiced and flavoured, the stew is bubbling and thick with stock, our bread is soft and spongy and wine, diluted, is waiting on a pitcher. The family sits and talks, all six of us, as we await Father's permission to begin.   

                Just as we are about to begin, a knock raps on our door. Father looks up, still and silent; the knock comes again, harder, more impatiently this time, and he ascends to see our visitor. My eyes dart around the table, being eldest, I follow Father to the door.

                He opens it. A fat, puffy alien man stands outside, several of his teeth shine with silvered enamel and he possesses a certain air of importance around him. All his four hands are covered with sleek, shiny gloves. He is Tairpar, mayor of the neighbourhood adjacent to ours. 

                "Michael, I have a piece of business to settle with you," he says through his puffy, bloated lips, "I am here to collect the exchange amount for the cargo I received from Fauldro yesterday. I trust that you have not forgotten."

                The timing is unlikely, but to Father business is business. He hurries off out of sight, leaving Tairpar and myself at the doorway. Aunt Cheng avoids his gaze, Michelle tries to hide her worry. Our visitor is drawing all attention to him and I know, too, that by meeting his gaze, I will grant him even more power.

                His eyes are narrowed, glancing towards the table. Even Michelle knows, even Liwei knows, what he is looking for. It is spread in rumours across the neighbouring communities, any youngster living near humans is taught this secret when young and chastised by his parents to take it to heart: on this night, the human night of plenty, humans drink the blood of a non-human child. _But where is the blood? Where?_

                Father returns, his journal with him to ascertain the true amount he owns to this trading partner of his. He holds out several cards, all Solbrecht debit plates. But our visitor is dissatisfied, he looks down at our offerings with disdain and mocking. 

                "You are short," he replies coldly, "of some three hundred debits."  
                "But Sir Tairpar, the entry in my journal doesn't show a higher amount," Father indicates, pointing to his book filled with scribbles and ledgers. "I owe you six thousand, no more, no less."

                "Interest rates have increased, the Solbrecht rates have fallen," he eyes me with utmost disgust. "Haven't you taught your daughter to take note of these things? Or are you training her to be as incapable as you?"

                I stutter, my hatred balling my hands into fists. To accuse a daughter of being unfilial!

                My father finds several other pieces of plates, but he still protests: "The journals cannot be wrong…"

                "If there is a problem you can bring this matter up to the magistrate of Zeraatel, I'm sure he would be happy to settle this for us," he taunts triumphantly, snatching away the plates from my Father's hands. "And might I remind you I am up for election as a magistrate as well… I will forgive this little error on your part, but next time I expect better service, from both you and your spawn."

                He retreats into the night. My hands, red from being balled together, now desire to tear the liar's throat apart. I taste hatred on my tongue, my spite for this four-armed bandit as I slam the door.   

                "How dare he say that right in our faces!" I burst out. "The pig!"

"There's no need to get angry," Father reproaches me. "What's done is done. Let's enjoy this dinner now."

                It's true, I do enjoy it. But within the chatting and the eating and the tang of spices as I taste them with the savoury meat melting in my mouth, something seems to taint the mood. My eyes constantly wander back to the doorway where the mayor once stood. I am consumed with loathing each time I think of it, and I cannot get it out of my mind.

_Written by shelter_


	3. Where allegiances lie

**2. Where allegiances lie**

**_A/N:_**_ I thought of continuing off from the last chapter, and trying to emphasize more on the family and some of the stuff that goes on inside Iris's head. You'd also probably guess by now that I'm Chinese, but that's only partially true, if you read my bio. The focus of the story being a Chinese family irked me a bit at first, but then I realised it's the culture and way of life I know most about and write the least of, so it could make an interesting sub-theme for a Titan A.E story. Truthfully, I think it gives the story a more personal feel too. In the later chapters I'll try to develop the culture in the writing, just as the characters develop too._

_ This chapter is for Tigrin and the kind words she had to offer in her short review of the 'Junkie'._

The night is still young and I join my family as we celebrate this season, a season of plenty, a season where we can drink and eat our fill without any worry about tomorrow. All around, in every house and every family along this street, we eat and be merry; it is the season of joy anyway, though only we really know how to observe it.

                Mother stirs the stew and we tuck into the sumptuous food. She divides the stew into three bowls; I share one with Michelle, while Mother and Aunt Cheng share another. Father separates the thick flavoured stock from his, skimming the surface of the dish and passes it to Liwei, who enjoys it better than the rest of us.  

                The feast of _jhowel _meat is spiced; as I chew into the slippery tendons, the undiluted pepper, in small black seeds, stings my tongue. Dripping curry and soup, the meat is heavenly, with the rosemary burning in my nose as I hold it up to eat. Such is the seasoning, our food has shed the stink of meat and donned herbs instead. Michelle face is bright. I know her smile, she knows I enjoy the food and the spices she has took so long to cultivate.

                Once the main course is finished, Aunt Cheng hands out the bread. As with all the dough we get from Ershed, it is leavened and soft to the touch. Without any butter like we had back on Earth, we use berry paste instead. It sticks to the roof of our mouths like adhesive, irritating but sweet. The bread itself almost dissolves in our mouths once we bite it. I pick up a wildflower bud, tied, from the drained bowl of soup. To everyone's amusement, I immerse it into the paste and swallow it whole. My throat will be sticky with sugar all night.

Then comes the presents. Only Aunt Cheng and Mother have got something for me this year, though Michelle has got another from Liwei. They swap presents after they've opened theirs; I don't blame them for not counting me in, I prefer my own stuff anyway. Mother has got me something to wear as usual. Last year it was a shawl, but I've only worn it once, on the first week of the New Year since it's white and doesn't go very well with my jet black hair. This year it is a windbreaker, made from white plastic with a hood and deep pockets by its sides. I give my Mother a hug and she smiles at me, for the first time today, in a rare happy way.

                But there are more surprises to come. Aunt Cheng's gift is wrapped tightly between folds of rough leather, and stringed up at the sides. With her consent, I pull the strings apart; the leather unfurls, eagerly I search within it folds for the gift that has got he grinning. And I find it: a memory clip, so small that it rests on my palm, glistening in the light delicately. 

                I cannot control the happiness. A memory device! Now I don't need to write down notes during lessons, I can store them in here with a mainframe, or with any other kind of notebook. Then I think again. _I will be able to record all my music._  

                The happiness built inside of me bursts and I rush to hug Aunt Cheng. "Thank you! Thank you!" is all I can blurt. My aunt is still grinning, even with my arms dangling around her neck. "This is the best christmas present I've got – ever," I say.

                Mother frowns, but we are all too lost in celebration to think of anything else but being joyful and merry. I present my gifts to my family: a necklace of glass beads for Mother and afresh pen for Father, though I feel a pang of guilt that I now have a memory device and he still is painstakingly writing his journals by hand. For Aunt Cheng I have nothing to offer but perfume; Alvin the herbalist sells these and I bought a lavender-scented fragrance for my aunt. She smiles warmly. 

                "Hey, what about me?" Michelle demands, pretending to look sour and haughty. 

                "You?" I beam, "Why would I forget you, sister?"       

                From beneath my slacks, I whip out a peach, a full peach, so ripe that it is bursting with red, and hand it to her proudly. I will not reveal my source, even though I know I could've gotten more. Michelle tears the fruit, and with her fingers peels of a portion for herself. Knowing her, she passes the remaining around the table. 

                Now it is time. Everyone calls to me, "Sing, Iris! Let's hear your voice!" My guitar upstairs, I cannot play at the moment, but I sing, and soon everyone joins in song. Some say I have the voice of an angel but I think it is the wine that's making them so merry and cheerful. We sing both happy and sad songs; some pain my heart while others are bright and upbeat. All around the houses the street will be alive with the echo of song. It is tradition we sing on this joyful day. Sing until the morning where we sing _to_ the dawn. Sing, indeed, for a new dawn that will bring hope and promise to all of us.  

                Neighbours come to give us their well wishes and gifts. Rusty and Spike arrive with their father Isaac Mezun and we offer them a snack as guests. But they decline; they are late, they say, for it is almost midnight and there are more people to visit, more neighbours to catch up with. Our duty as guests doesn't end with the arrival of others: Ershed and his daughter from New Marrakech, Tamar; Alvin, with his usual sour mood; and Jeffery, who greets Father with a hug without fail.

                Like it has been the years before, all the well-wishing soon descends into the usual talk.

                "Did you hear the news? About the Drej?"

                "They have reappeared again. Everyone, from the town magistrates right up to the Solbrecht chancellor, is afraid. Some have issued a statement to all cargo ships to cease trading ventures with the Black Fields System." 

                "Preposterous! If that's the mentality of everyone in Solbrecht, the planet might lose millions in exports."

                "Did you hear? There are rumours the Drej shot down that ship because there were humans on board."

                Immediately, the atmosphere becomes tense. The news of the Drej is not as worrying to us as it is to the hundreds of other races out there, but the fact still remains: the Drej are after humans. They destroyed our beloved planet and they are still out to destroy us all.

                "Some aliens submitted a proposal to the Zechaat law enforcement bureau, hoping to shut down several human-owned businesses here on Solbrecht."

                "Submitted by the their business rivals, of course."

                "I heard that some of these businesses want the Zechaat residents to boycott human enterprises."  

                "_Stupid_. Do you know how much these human businesses contribute to the planet's economy?"

                "Hopefully this will all blow over. Anyway, we have nothing to worry about. The City Council in Zechaat passed a law that all humans be protected and left untouched. By the Solbrecht chancellor himself!"

                "But what about here, in Zyjushem?"

                "The magistrate will protect us, as he always does," Alvin says, his feeble voice now strong and confident, "may he live long in comfort and security!"  

                At the mention of our city magistrate mayor, I feel anger ripple through me. A weight has suddenly been set on my heart; the festive mood is dampened by his name.

                Tamar glares at me, seeing my dissent. "Ah, yes, how is our dear old magistrate?" she asks.

                "They say he has purchased a new ship, all sleek and streamlined, its thrusters state-of-the-art. It is a modified phoenix craft all the way from D'Amara. It is so modern and fast that it can outstrip any vessel in hyperdrive."

                "The magistrate's quarters are serviced by two dozen slaves, I heard," Tamar remarks.

                I add, "His fingers are laced with rings."

                Father frowns; at last he has gotten the message I have been trying to send across to him. I am not particularly fond of our magistrate. It is true that he welds much more authority over our neighbourhood landlords and mayors who are always calling for the lease payments, but he is still a friend of scum such as Tairpar. Most people support him because he keeps crime rates low; the humans support him because he protects us and allows us to trade. But Father always contemplates the possibility that he might raise the human tax. 

                The magistrate somehow succeeded in persuading Golbus' and his crime ring to stop going through every city in Solbrecht, burning human property and homes. He has agreed not to harass us for fifteen years. In turn, we pay a tax to the mayor: each year, the humans must come up with ten thousand debits to repay the magistrate's gratitude. He calls this the human tax. Sometimes I feel that he and Golbus are merely in a ploy to make money out from us, but why can't everyone else see it? 

                But knowing how well humans can make business, we somehow manage to come up with the sum by year's end.

                Alvin, acting in the spur of the moment, raises his glass. "I propose a toast!" he declares, his face red from the rich wine. "To the continued prosperity of our Solbrecht community and good governance." 

                To refuse an elder's request is to be disrespectful. I raise my glass, still untouched, into the air like everyone else, and we intone the words. The festive mood, I feel, has subsided a bit since our discussion. As much as we try to enjoy the present, there are still the demands of tomorrow to be met. 

                Jeffery himself, giddy on wine, rambles on after the conversation: "A toast! A toast indeed! To the… success of our… our businesses! And to humanity!"

                The men grunt in agreement. 

                "There is nothing else… more valuable…than who we are…" he blathers, "nothing else… than heritage and being human! Nothing…but the loyalty to what…what… we …believe in! To the future of the human race… and a future Earth!" 

                By now the guests are silent. There is a sense of melancholy, but overriding that a sudden atmosphere of uneasiness. Father has a black look on his face and his eyes are downcast so I cannot read them. Everyone else has put on a sombre expression; by the look on Mother's face, it's probably better that Jeffery had kept his mouth such than mention such taboo in a gathering. 

                _Earth_, I question, why is it a word restricted, forbidden? The elders rarely mention it, except during nostalgic holidays. Only Mr. Niel speaks of it openly – during history class, of course, and still people find it inappropriate. Mr. Niel thinks having a place where we can settle has made us lose hope, lose our faith in a small number of brave men and women who have safeguarded the secret of a new Earth for more than a decade now.

I know Mother never speaks about it. As far as she is concerned Solbrecht, Zyjushem, is our home. And I have known no other. But is it too much to wish for a home of our own? Mr. Niel thinks the children will grow up without longing for a true home because they have never experienced Earth. He is wrong. 

The more we hear about a planet where we could live without being taxed, without being bullied, we inherit the remnants of that hope our parents forgot or abandoned. _Yes_, wouldn't it be nice to have a planet – where we could live and pass on to our children? _Wouldn't it be nice to have a planet where we weren't taxed because we are human?_

                No one is speaking now, and Jeffery does not having even the remotest idea of his error in his drunken stupour. 

                "Enough said," Father says finally, breaking the horrid silence, "this … this is a time to look towards the future, not bring up the past."

                "But this _is _talking about the future," I speak up. I don't know what possessed me to, though, but now all eyes are on me. "Jeffery is right. Why shouldn't be wishing forward to a new Earth? It will probably not happen in our generation, but this is our very commitment we have to!"

                "We already have a home, Iris," Father replies, trying to sound patient. "And it is Solbrecht."

                "Our home was Earth!" I protest. "It always will be!"   

                Father's eyes are bulging with rage; if there weren't guests he would've chided at me from across the table and brought his hand down on me. I don't care; let him beat me a hundred times!

                "You… you…"

                I need no prompting. I excuse myself and run upstairs, my eyes half-filled with tears at my Father's hardness. As I enter my room, I slam the door behind me and sit beside the open window. My tears are wet, and I feel sorrow, like a hole in my heart, eating it slowly. But I am the oldest child, as Mother says, and I try to hide the tears. 

                A breeze is wafting through the street, bringing cold wind to my tears. In every house in the street, the front porches are alight, the families gathered around the tables, with songs echoing in the night. Everyone else in every house will be happy – except me.

                I hear a knock on my door, and Mother gently opens it. 

                "Iris, don't open the window. You'll catch a cold in such weather," she coaxes. "Why don't you come back down to the table and wish our guests goodnight?" 

                My throat is dry but real enough to conceal my sobs. "It was a mistake, I never meant to be disrespectful," I say, my face turned. "Why is Father so cold?"

                "When Earth was destroyed, we all lost a lot. Not only our families, but our security and very history. Your father has, well, lost much more than you can imagine, and sometimes he forgets that other people have no Earth either. So he tries to forget. That is his only way of dealing with it."

                I love my mother; she understands me sometimes more than I understand myself, but still I want to be alone.

                "No thanks," I tell her. "I need some time by myself… but tell Tamar I wish her a Merry Christmas."

                She nods, and once again I am alone. The room, despite the dimness, is now my only source of comfort. I unearth the memory device out of my pocket and place it on my side of the bedside table, and sit on my bed, unable to gather my thoughts.

                One of my guitars is slouched against the wall. It beckons to me, and I yield to its temptation. As I cradle in my arms, I can feel the strings beneath my finger, their touch, metallic but full of warmth. Before I know it I am playing something, strumming idly to a tune, my two hands and their fingers taking their positions without me guiding them. 

                How nice it feels to be fighting for a cause! Yes, I know I was disrespectful in my defence of Jeffery's drunken brawling. No well brought-up girl would are deny question her Father. But the feeling, of having something you so strongly believe in, is pleasurable. I don't know what this feeling is… persistence, maybe, or hope… 

                And I play for my hope, that it may never grow thin. I feel too miserable to sing. All I can do is play, a song without words, to express the realization of holding on to a hope so blind that even I cannot see its presence. 

_Written by shelter_


	4. Dreams and Dreamers

**3. Dreams and Dreamers**

**_A/N:_**_ Took some time to write this chapter. I'm not trying to add a bit of Iris feelings into it, so the first part of the chapter's more of a deep recollection. I've tied to make it as real as I could, taking some stuff out from my own memories as well. I'm also trying to work on songs, attempting to write some just for the story. But I'm quite busy with exams at the moment; once they end, I'm devoting all my writing time to continuing this story._

_                Special thanks to Rys and Kerrie Tuck, I must add, for their compliments. Hope this chapter's good enough for you. Part of it was thought up during this fever I had over the last week._

_There is bungalow at the end of a track off the main road. I have forgotten its name; I dream of my home often, and every time after I wake, my eyes are stinging with tears. _

_                In my dream everything is opague and whitewashed. I am on the front porch of the house, looking across the garden lawn, towards the gates. The two Chinese lions perched atop the pillars on each side of the gate always catch my eye; they made of jade, their eyes made to look fearsome so that they safeguard the family house they protect. Their stare focuses on the gate, so any visitor will see their eyes before he enters our house._

_                In my dream I can see everything. The garden is large and green, with the exception of the exposed soil under the fruit tree and the coy pond tucked away to the brick wall by the side. The feel of marble is cold and hard beneath my feet, and occasionally someone will call me to come in.  _

                The voice belongs to my Grandmother. Her face is wrinkled, her hands weathered and adorned with jade bangles that her mother gave to her before they came down from China. She walks with a certain lop-sided limp, because her left leg is weak. I obey her orders, and rest beside her on the kitchen table as she pounds chilli or cuts long beans for the meal at night. Her eyes are bright but she never smiles. She is a serious woman who, after years of child rearing, demands her children take care of her until she dies.

_                Always, she will sit in silence as she does her daily duty. Somehow, there is constantly a vegetable that needs to be chopped, garlic that requires dicing, or chilli to be pounded. Even when these are not available, she will preoccupy herself with sewing, mending her old pair of sandals. She cannot read. But instead listens to the _wayang_ when it airs on the radio._

                _When she thinks I deserve a treat, she will accompany me out of the silvered gates and into the track. Houses flank us as we walk, but none are as large or eminent as ours. The rest are simply two-storeys with small patches as gardens. Children play badminton in the patios, television echoes from within them in a language I have yet to master. Cars roll by sometimes and crows scavenge from dustbins that have fallen over. Cats prowl along the storm drains; their tails always disappearing before I can see them, but Grandmother insists they are there._

_                At the end of the track I can hear the traffic. The track ends and the main road begins. I have never gone any further than the main road; to me it has always been busy and dangerous and loud. But here there is a small coffee shop where the smell of frying and the presence of cats is more appealing than the traffic.   _

_                A man is standing there, and he greets Grandmother in dialect. He is fat and slouches, tufts grey hair still present on his balding head. Sometimes he looks at me and praises my Grandmother for having such beautiful grandchildren. Other times he is smoking and talking to another man seated lazily across a table. But whenever I see this man, my heart leaps for joy, because I know he gives me a stick. A sweet stick, which is coloured, called ice-cream._

                _They leave me to my own devices at the moment, while they talk. Their conversation is always the same. They talk about the old times: _wayang_ coming to the neighbourhood, shopping and the latest lottery numbers. Sometimes their talk goes as far back as the time Mother was born, and the year they moved into the neighbourhood. I only catch phrases and bits of it, though now I wish I had caught more. Most of the time my attention is focused on the cats, as they rub against my legs in hope of getting a bite. Grandmother shoos them away sometimes; she thinks they, especially the black ones, are a nuisance._

_                In the end we are walking home, my face sticky with pandan or red bean flavour the ice-cream contained and Grandmother is struggling to keep me from wiping my face on my dress. The sun is setting, casting a silhouette of the trees behind us, and darkening the old quarry on the hill that looms above our house. A chunk of the hillside has been blown apart because of that quarry, which Grandmother says I should never go near because of the deep pools and ledges. _

_                We arrive home, and it all ends there. _

_My eyes open to darkness – in a faraway, alien land, in a dark, empty room._

                The remaining memories – of my family bungalow under the old granite quarry, of the neighbourhood and its stark contrast with the wealth I lived in, of the feel of being in a place you know so well – evades me. The dream recurs, and each time more vividly than ever. When I stare up at the ceiling, I can almost feel Grandmother's wrinkled hand clutching mine, even smell the frying and the lush of the garden and asphalt on the roads after a rainy day.    

_                Then other feelings, other thoughts hit me like a falling raindrop, splattering all the fondness and warmth of my memories. _

                _There will never be a bungalow on the edge of the track under an old granite quarry. Not because we abandoned it, but because Earth is no more. There will never be the small neighbourhood ever again; on the day we left we a friend of Father's drove us from the back because he said the houses were being looted. And there will be no more Grandmother. The ship she was in, along with Father's friend and my second uncle, was incinerated attempting to leave Earth._

                The memories and feelings are like a flood, both good and bad, which washes away all reason for you to hang on to this miserable life that descended from the past. It is still hard for me to remember the escape; all I can picture in my mind are hundreds of people, loaded like cattle onto ships, and blasted away into space. 

_                I remember, with stories from other friends, how soldiers had to fire to keep back the crowd. Many of these soldiers could not live with themselves afterwards, Doug told me, and many just ended their lives because of all the painful memories. Everyone in our ship made it safely to a nearby planet when we escaped; other ships were rife with plague and death. But we were lucky. _

_                We were very lucky.            _

_                I was too young to remember the entire escape. Maybe someday it'll return to my dreams and I can recall everything. But now Mother won't tell me about it; neither will Aunt Cheng, who escaped on a different ship and had her baby die on board. There is too much despair behind our past, too much trauma lurking in every family's history. Releasing it would do no one any better._

_                Sometimes I think strange things. It is no secret that our wealth saved us. If it weren't for Father's inheritance, we wouldn't have the bungalow. We wouldn't have had enough money to secure a place in a ship either. The money saved us; Mother said it was a huge sum. Father_ _must've have used the remaining assets to buy our way into Solbrecht, like so many others did. It is clear who we are: the wealthy, the rich, the once affluent humans who prospered on Earth and survived to start over on a different planet.                _

_                But look where we are now. All our money has bought us is a place to exist, surrounded by dissent and hatred for our kind. Father was once an auditor, now he is a moneychanger who owns a portion of a corner in the docks. Many, even humans, say we are swindlers, always bribing others for pardon while living off others like parasites. We never face the problem face-to-face, they say. _

_                Sometimes I feel they are right. If it weren't for our money, we would be living in drifter colonies like everyone else. But we were privileged; we were able to sway people with riches and wealth. And all this jeering, extortion and exerting of their influence over us is the price we have to pay. For running away like gutless rats._

_                Eventually the thoughts face away. I try to remember some more memories but they all come in a blur to me. I was too young back then, and as I grow older, time is bleaching these memories from my head. I want to get to sleep now; I feel it's the only thing that can bring comfort. Yet my bed feels hard and uninviting, the room cold and devoid of any warmth. As much as I try to shut my eyes, darkness is enclosing me from all sides. Not the darkness you get in blissful sleep, but a sudden, blank blackness.___

Good things are always over in a flash; Christmas day passes, then Boxing Day, finally life returns in full swing, and reality with it. Father has his duty at the docks while Michelle, Liwei and I have school to return to.

                On this morning Mother awakens us earlier than usual. The sky is still dark, and groggily, I put on my clothes. Michelle and I take a morning shower; sure enough, the freezing water jolts us awake. Our breakfast, one of hot soup, is simple but enough to keep our minds off food and focused on learning all day. I pack all that I need in my guitar bag, and without further delay, we are sent off for classes.

                The air, heavy and damp, feels cold in my chest, yet the community is readying itself for the day ahead. Alvin's apothecary is already open, an oil lamp illuminating his wares as he pounds on precious saffron powder and weighs salt. Jeffery, though he has been given a cold shoulder by several others since the incident during Christmas, is repairing a hover scooter in full view of anyone coming by the street. He greets us, with the enthusiasm of being awake for hours already. Doug, like a silent sentinel, is perched on his balcony, the ember of his cigarette visible, in deep thought.

                There is a certain glint of malice in his eyes as he greets us. His salutation isn't as warm as before. Eyebrows raised, he eyes us through the dim light of the morning. Perhaps he has been thinking too much again.

                I see the school building up ahead, and at once I feel relieved to be out of Doug's steely glare.

                Our school does not have gates. It was once a home; with only three-storeys to spare, the elders say it was abandoned by the original residents of this street, who dwelled here even before we came. Its height allows it to stand out from the other dwellings, and its walls are dirty grey with moss and soot. It overlooks the square, and the road dividing the two neighbourhoods further ahead. There is a small yard within the compound, where several others are milling around.

                Iain is not among them, but Vanessa is.

                I hardly step through the invisible barrier separating street from school when I am challenged. Vanessa obstructs my path; I try not to look her in the eye, for I know it provokes her. Instead, I keep my head bent low, bangs covering my eyes, just as if I was facing Arhleus or Glein. She is a head taller than me, but lanky and lacks meat, Aunt Cheng reckons. No one questions her, except Iain or myself. Sometimes she doesn't even have patience for me.

                "So you keep your head low," she sneers, "ashamed, aren't you, from entertaining a drunkard?"      

                I hold my tongue, trying not to retort. She can be wrathful, violent sometimes, but ultimately a good friend to those whom she tolerates. No one knows this reason for her queer behaviour, but all the students understand she's suffered more than most of us.

                "What do you have in that case?"

                Strange question. I raise my head, trying not to look defiant, and look her in the face. She has been crying again, I know it: her eyes are shadowed in deep red gullies. She tries to act tough but we know it is merely a cover-up for something more personal. Her eyes, though, are like lasers, burning into mine. The stud on her right eye catches the light for a second, and holds it steady, and I take care not to further damage her feelings.

                "A problem, Vanessa?" I question.

                The other students are watching nervously. Without our teacher present, I may be in for a good thrashing.

                "You don't seem so tough without the teacher's son here beside you, aren't you, Iris?"

                "Watch your tongue," I caution, hoping my false threat will deter her. "Can't ever fight the urge to spite Iain, can't you?"

                "Me? Spite Iain? Now why would I do that here?" Vanessa puts on a face, in mock innocence. "Did he tell you about the rehearsal?"                   

                Now she has caught my undivided attention. I haven't seen Iain for three days, and Vanessa, who lives closer to the Niels than I do, would be bound to have heard something. My eyes glance to my case, where my guitar lies, untouched since Christmas night. If there is a rehearsal, I haven't done much practice.

                "Is this all about a rehearsal?" I demand.

                "Just making sure you make it worth my time with you guys," she adds maliciously. Us! Worth her time! She should be glad she's part of our group. Iain thought we'd need a good drummer, and she has yet to prove her worth.

                I see a figure approaching from the corner of my eye, and Vanessa's shadow backs away from me at once. Turning, I see Clarissa Sinclair, the daughter of one of Keane Greening's friends. She is preoccupied in a conversation with Mr. Niel, looking serious today with his grey overcoat. And right behind them, is haversack slung under the weight of a bass guitar, is Iain.

                This is the way I remember him before Christmas. He only has one guitar, but he hardly bothers to keep it safe, just hauling it around by its oversized neck. He looks more rock-band material than I do anyway; I've seen how all those people which played our kind of music in the past looked like, and Iain comes straight out of one of them. His head is always in a rakish tilt when he plays and his blonde hair moves with the music.

                "Hey Iris," he greets me, his eyes glinting with warmth, "did you hear about our rehearsal?"

                I try not to turn back to Vanessa, who's probably lurking behind me in the state of sub-satisfaction. Iain has said it: there will be a rehearsal today. Just the three of us. 

                "Yeah, of course I did."      

                Mr. Niel herds everyone else into the school building and shuts the door. In the normal schools, classes are much bigger, with several teachers taking one class. But here it's only Mr. Niel, whom most people think is the only qualified person for the job; all the subjects we learn are human subjects anyway. 

                With only thirty-four pupils, Iain and I take the desks at the back of the classroom; sometimes we get caught talking, sometimes we don't, but it's a gamble worth taking. As the class settles down, Mr. Niel sets a thick, hardcover volume on the table beside the board. Human history again, but I remind myself we aren't exactly spoiled for choice. Mr. Niel teaches us the basics: history, languages, some economics and science, with literature sometimes thrown in for good measure.   

                "Your books out, class," he says to all of us. "History first today, and this lesson will be on the human space project development after the 21st century."

                I wearily take out my notebook and listen as Mr. Niel begins. I've been in his class for almost five years now, and he's been teaching Human history from back to front. There's no fixed syllabus, we're all just taught what we should know. At first it was all quite interesting, with all the empires and wars and politics. Then it seemed as if someone put a stopper to all human bloodshed, and we began learning about peace and diplomacy. You'd think after being a human invention, it would've spread to other parts of this universe.

                My thoughts sidetrack, and I ask Iain, "Did you ask Vanessa to come along to that rehearsal you were talking about?" 

His eyes widen. "Yeah, of course, I did. We need a good drummer, don't we? Of course, I hope you've practised, because I've got another song here for you to try out."

                Mr. Niel has launched into a full lecture about humankind's first discovery of the hyper drive engine. As much as I find this lesson meaningful, I don't feel in the least interested. All I can think of is the rehearsal later; Vanessa, Iain and myself, together attempting to perform, for only the second time. The thoughts, warm, fill my head, though they can't seem to block out the lesson. 

Iain, too, doesn't take our history lesson that well. As his father drones on, he gives me a playful look – and how I wish I could kiss that mischief in his eyes! I return him another look, and all we seem to be able to do is to stare at each other all day.

The rehearsals were Iain's idea. He thought it would be something for a bunch of us to come together and perform, or at least try to perform, the old songs. His father's infinite access to old records existing in Solbrecht and the drifter colonies has no doubt helped a lot. The result: we have an endless amount of songs, old songs written before Earth's destruction, and new ones composed after, in the time we call AfterEarth.

                So in some ways, yeah, we are a band.

                A really rag-tag one at that. We don't practice often because we don't have enough cells for the amps. It's one thing to have an amp, and another thing to keep it running. We don't have much support idea, although Mr. Niel thought this would make a good project. Few people listen to human music, just all their trashcan remixes and Solbrecht grunge. But human music's beyond all that; it soars. 

                At the thought of playing again, my mind is awakened, alert with adrenaline that comes from playing a good song. The moment Mr. Niel announces classes are over, everyone is glad; I hope everyone clears out, so we can use the classroom. As usual, Michelle and Clarissa are asking Mr. Niel questions but Iain is already tuning his bass guitar, drawing some attention from the other students. 

                I remove mine from out of the guitar case. She's a beauty; slick and black and four feet long, I handle her with care. I tuned it a few nights ago, so the chords should still be in place. My amp, charged with carefully hoarded cells, stands up to be knees. I flick the switch, and get nothing but static. The plug, polished and shiny, goes into the back of my guitar – and the static is replaced by the eager hum of an instrument tuned and raring to go.

                I slump into my chair, as Vanessa arranges her drums. 

                "First rehearsal in three months," Iain grins, "let's see what you got."

                My hands go towards the strings, plucking them gently as I keep one finger on the bass. At the touch of metal on skin, my fingers dance, somehow managing to produce a tune. It goes on and on softly, with the amp volume turned down. I pull one sting, then my other fingers descend, my thumb always poised over the bass. The tune intensifies, catching pace, ending as I strain the pulled string. 

                "Not bad," Iain remarks, his eyes are still glinting playfully, "is that a wrong note I hear?"

                "Hey," I counter, insulted, "I practised!" 

                A group of students have gathered, watching, while others are milling around, pretending they're not dying to watch us. Michelle seems to have gotten an upper hand in some debate Mr. Niel and Clarissa seem to be having. Their voices, raised loud, are the only sounds apart from my chords in the classroom.

                Vanessa straightens her drum set. She keeps in the school. "So what song are we playing today?" she asks.

                "How about 'Rabbit Hole'?" Iain suggests. "Iris, what do you think?"

                I sift through the old song sheets Iain brought along. All of the songs have complicated chords, some I haven't seen before, and I'm not game to show I can't play them in front of our first audience. One song catches my eye; the chords are easy, and I can almost feel the music in my ears as I examine the chords again.

                "Why don't we try this one," I gesture to Iain.

                His eyes widen. Glancing at the chords, he readies himself. "Your intro," he grins.

                The chords seem simple enough. At my own timing, I begin to strum. It comes out raw, pure music from the loud amp. As I still attempt to play the tune, Iain's bass notes have cut into mine, a deep-voiced accompaniment. Vanessa is just waiting for the signal.

                The music is slow at first; I keep my strumming gentle to suit the mood of this song and its quiet intro. But gradually it picks up tempo, and my hands are moving fast to keep up with the chords I picture in my head as I read the music keys. The bass glides gently in and out of everything, while Vanessa picks along with her snare drum beats. One more line, I tell myself…

                Finally the song reaches a climax and I hit the strings with all my might. A long, growling, sneering, rasping note emits from the amp and Vanessa joins in, a smash of cymbals to mark her addition. At first, as I struggle to come back in to song, all our notes get mixed u in a ragged rhythm. But gradually, we find each other, and the sound hits everyone there as a smooth, powerful wall of music.

                Even Mr.Niel's intrigued; he has stopped the debate as Clarissa and Michelle look our direction, Michelle grinning slightly. I pick the strings again, letting a note hang before my fingers slip down in a rasp of metal. Iain his hands picking his bass carefully, breaks into song.

                His voice changes it all. A song without a voice may be music, but a song with one is poetry. By the way Iain sings, I know this is a sad song, heavy with a feeling which courses through my fingers as regret. It was a song written during the AfterEarth, and it tells of how we are wanderers, in a hostile, unfriendly land. That's the beauty of music; no matter how small-minded the musician is at heart, the music offers a voice from the writer, and a voice from a different heart.

                As the song trails away, my part is the longest. The bass fades, slow but eventual, and Iain's singing voice dies off into silence. But the chords still go on, and I am compelled to continue playing for the audience. Even Vanessa has taken note of the change in beat, and she has stopped. My guitar solo is more of a bridge, repeating the same chords over and over again, as they soften to a finality. My hands strumming, my thumb hits the bass note, before silently, so silently now, the music fades into nothingness…

                I am surrounded by amazed faces, which break into applause. The rehearsal, judging by the look on Iain's face, was a success. He smiles broadly, pretending to accept the applause as he straightens his guitar. Even Vanessa is smiling; she puts on a weak smile as she says to me, "Beautiful." 

                "Well, you followed right up till the very end," I tell her. Now I have heard her play. "You're the good drummer Iain said you were."

                As we are ushered out by Mr. Niel, the sky is darkening, and I stay for a while to talk to the others. They all say the same thing: beautiful music. I can't help being flattered by their compliments. Iain, his guitar dangling by his back, gets the praise of his father.

                But the joyous mood is dampened by something else. There is a mob assembling in the square. We nervously disperse, the night sinister and a feeling of foreboding in the air. It's a good thing Michelle and Liwei went home first; the streets are deserted as I walk with Vanessa. But then, I hear noises, coming from all around. They are not human voices, closing in from the streets, carrying flaming torches. As we hurry, I suddenly realise it. There can only be one outcome, on a night like this. 

                As we round the corner, the street explodes. A mob attacks the store on the roadside, setting a cart of fruit in flames. They smash the makeshift tarps of the store, sending them crashing down. A rock, smooth and spinning, is thrown inside the owner's house.

                "Come out, you blood drinkers!" they taunt. 

                "Filthy human!"

                The fires from the torched cart illuminate their faces. They are Solbrecht natives, set on a rampage for the traditional holiday uproar. Other aliens, standing behind them and somewhat amused, watch them the youths tear apart another tarp. After all, youngsters will be youngsters. 

                I watch, the fires setting ablaze my face, as they slam into Alvin's cart of spices and torch it as well. Someone turns my direction, and immediately my blood freezes.

                "There! There's a human! Get them!"

                Vanessa and I run one direction, while Iain and Mr. Niel run another. Hoping to confuse them, the breath burning in my lungs, I dodge as rocks land against the wall, scattering fragments onto my face and littering the street. My house is up ahead. If we can reach there, we will be safe. 

                But the moment I step through the door, a rock smashes into the back of Vanessa's head, and she falls, spread-eagled across the street. Fearing nothing all of a sudden, I seize her, as another rock crosses my line of sight. Her body is limp, and motionless, with fresh red blood oozing from the wound.

                "Human scum!"

                "Filthy vermin!"

                "Come on! To the cemetery! Let's dig up their ghosts!"

                And with a loud ruckus, the mob is gone. I slump in the doorway of my own home, as Mother and Michelle arrive to help. My guitar is still in its case, but it doesn't matter now. Guilt, heavier than exhaustion, wells up in my chest. We failed to see this coming, and my friend Vanessa has to be pay the price.

Written by shelter 


	5. The Fair

**4. The Fair**

**_A/N:_**_ I think I may have gotten something confused in the last chapter: Vanessa does not die. All I wanted to show was how the mob injured her, and how the ending scene of Iris helping Vanessa will develop in the later chapters. As I've already told Rys, I don't intend to kill off a major character – yet.   
I have to apologise for the delay in uploading the fourth addition. Post-exam stress has given me an acute case of writers' block and the closure of my school server means I can only use the internet from home now. I hope this chapter satisfies the wait – for those who have waited. I'm trying now to go into detail on the music and Iris' thoughts, because I think they can help the plot and flow of the story a lot. I've tried not to create any sub-plots, though the idea of it is still tempting. Take the fair as part of the story, which will be a crucial item to the story later on (why do I always say that?)   
And this chapter is dedicated to both Rys and Tigrin, for all your encouragement. _

I am consumed with joy! Yesterday, I received the best possible news after the doctor telling us that Vanessa was all right. There will be a trade fair in Zechaat, on the eighteenth day of the second month, and Father says he will be going to the capital to see if he can get a good deal on changing currency. And he has, with the subtlest of hints, suggested the idea of me accompanying with him.

                "Why not?" he had asked Aunt Cheng, who has always been quick to disapprove whenever something out of the ordinary crops up. "She has earned it. Letting her come along will give her a chance prove how well she has mastered the trade, and it's good experience too. Besides, there'll be a music festival in Zechaat. She can show her real skills there."

                "Lui, ah, you trust your daughter too much sometimes," she sighs.

                "Let her go. Anyway, Michelle can take over while she's gone, and she cooks better anyway," Mother persists.

                Iain and Mr. Niel are going to the fair as well. Mr. Niel says he reckons there'll be some human traders there, and he is interested in the antiques and old artifacts he can probably obtain from them. But Iain, seeing his wicked smile, is going solely for the music. If only we can persuade Mr. Perez to allow Vanessa to come along as well…

                Vanessa looks better now. It's been two weeks since the mob struck, and the community's been quiet ever since. All except Keane Greening of course, who still continues his trade as if nothing has happened. Spike and Rusty, returning from hauling cargo from D'Armara in their usual animated mood, fail to see the intensity of the holiday uproar. 

                But they do tell us stories. Stories of the Drej, of how they were spotted near D'Armara this time; of how they routed a D'Armaran fleet when they were challenged; of how they disappeared, as quickly as they appeared, after being sighted. Spike and Rusty say they'll be avoiding leaving the safety of the Solbrecht system for now. They departed for a drifter colony later, but I don't suppose we won't see them at the fair.

                And my dreams continue. What do they mean? Sometimes, I dream about Earth, the soft blue terrestrial sky and the gentle clouds in the distance. Other times, I dream about Solbrecht, crying voices in the background, the sky as red as the colour of blood. I wake sweating, dwelling only on one thing: that I'm going to the fair soon, and I can leave the nightmares behind.

                On Wednesday Father tells me to run an errand after school; Mr. Perez wants some old items sold at the trade fair, and he has entrusted them to us. Even as a moneychanger, Father knows a lot about the business of trade: we make pledges to sell when business wears thin; I'll have to master everything from him. But for now my heart does a leap; this will finally give me an opportunity to talk to Mr. Perez without the knowledge of my parents.

                The Perez household is opposite the lavish apartment of Keane Greening's. Their house is large too, by the street's standards, though Vanessa won't tell me why. She seems warmer to me now, since she was attacked; but with Vanessa, you never know. 

                As I knock on the door, Mr. Perez answers.

                "Ah, yes, good afternoon, Iris," he greets me, his broad smile extends above his badly-shaven chin, "I believe your father sent you to collect the items. Would you like to step inside while I fetch them?"

                "Thanks," I reply.

                The interior of the apartment is large, with generous spaces where Mr. Perez has displayed his family heirlooms. Vanessa, her eyes wide and sympathetic, stares at me halfway down the stairs, as if her excitement about something had died away. I wonder if she envies me; does she think me fortunate, to be venturing beyond Zyjushem and across the plains to Zechaat? 

Approaching her, my eyes catch a glimpse of a picture by the adjacent wall. I can see three people, all smiling faintly. Within these seconds, as my eyes wander again, I notice a girl in the frame that I have never seen before. Vanessa eyes me again; this time I keep my eyes to myself. But even then in my mind I cannot take the image of that girl out of my mind. Is she Vanessa's mother?

                "So you're going to Zechaat?" Vanessa suddenly asks.              

                I nod. "Mostly to help my father with money-changing. He reckons I need to learn how to take over the trade."

                Her eyes narrow slightly; there is envy in them. "Iain told me there's going to be a music festival in Zechaat," she mutters, then bends her head low. "He said he was trying to reserve a time slot for us to play." 

                I can see the longing in her eyes, the small tones of jealousy in her voice. There is no need to hide our topic of conversation now. Direct, I question her, "Did you ask your father whether you could come along?"

                Before she can respond, Mr. Perez returns, with a case almost overflowing with an assortment of curious objects and other unusual items. He places it down between us, seemingly indicating through his movements the goods meant nothing to him, but like every human businessman, he was going to make the most out of it.

                "How much do you take from sales?" he questions, almost offhandedly.

                I tell him what Father tells me every time we make pledges: "Ten percent for traveling expenses. More if needed."

                "Spoken like a true businessman," Mr. Perez grins. I feel slightly surprised, partly because I have never seen him often enough to find him in good spirits. But my surprise turns to astonishment when I realise the items in the case: a perfect glass model of Solbrecht, glinting in the sunshine; gold chains curled messily at the bottom, and a transmitter radio, intact and still shining with polish.   

                My eyes widen, but Vanessa stalks away. Mr. Perez eyes me, as if to see my reaction. These items are worth more than junk.

                "I am a businessman, Iris, and I understand you're learning to be one," he says, and I know it's true: he is a partner in an engineering enterprise downtown. "But as many businessmen do, I have commitments, and I am bound to them here in Zyjushem." 

                "Mr. Perez," I began to protest; I feel as if I have been entrusted with a job, "but…"

                "No Iris, I want you to sell these goods for me," he says firmly. "I'll leave it in your hands rather than your Father's, because I'm confident you'll help me fetch a good price. And if it necessary for all your trouble, you can take twenty percent."

                I stutter, not in amazement, but in gratitude. I have barely known this man, yet he trusts me with pledges worth over more than a thousand debits! He nods, looking like my Father, then turns away. But there is something else not settled.

                "Mr. Perez?" I ask, my voice sounding both thankful and pleading.

                "Hmm?" he turns.

                "I know my Father goes to the fair for business and so do I," I urge myself to get to the point, "but there will be a music festival in Zechaat at the same time. I aspire to perform there, and I'm sure you know I've been practising with Vanessa… I can understand if you don't want her to come. The trip to Zechaat is quite long, but I was thinking… it would be nice if I could play with her."

                For a moment he swells, breathing hard and I fear an outburst. My heart skips a beat when he presents a small smile.

                "Yes, I have heard of the festival, Edric's son isn't exactly the quietest person you'd meet," he eyes me again, with a glare that seems to be either a frown or a grin. "And I also know about your band." 

                My band! Is he flattering me?

                "I know how Vanessa feels about it. She doesn't talk much, and I'm surprised it had to be you who brought it up," I become wary again, learning my fears are unfounded. "If Vanessa is really that good I will talk to her. Maybe she will consider…"

                I already know Vanessa's answer. At that moment I cannot contain my joy; I reach out to Mr. Perez and grasp him by the hand. 

                "Thanks, thank you, Mr. Perez!" I blurt. "I assure you that I'll fetch a good price for your goods!"

                "I don't doubt that. I just want you to watch over Vanessa, all right?" he actually gives a sigh while smiling. "_Youths nowadays_."

                He accompanies me to the door and I wish him the best in his ventures. The case in hand, I try to picture Vanessa being asked whether she would like to accompany us. I try to imagine her surprise, her happiness, her excitement. The mere thought of it has never made me happier in weeks.

In the days ahead Father settles the journals, gathers debts from his debtors and writes off those unwilling to pay under interest. Once the journals are balanced, he says, all our money changing in Zyjushem will be accounted for, ready for a fresh new start in Zechaat, the capital.  

                At the same time, we prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. My task is simple: to gather all our pledges, and to pack them into the Niels' craft. We are unable to afford traveling by air, not after the taxes we must pay, so the Niels have agreed to share their craft with us.  

                It is a wretched thing, sluggish and slumbered in its movements; it resembles a truck, like the many old models I have seen in the textbooks, just that its wheels are smaller, its body ugly and scarred, in its metal bulk. But my task is not to complain. I load the items in cases borrowed from Alvin, stocking them neatly in corners. Finally I leave a niche where my guitar will be placed, like a king, rested for the adventure that awaits.

                Just days before our departure, I accompany Father and Mr. Niel to the city hall to settle our taxes and carriage duties. I have been this way many times before, but now my walk is wide and confident. I am going to the fair, I wish I could say, I am going on a journey for business and music. Armed with his journals, Father leads us into the wide, heavy steel doors of the city hall.

                The place is cold, devoid of mirth and merriment. Instead, burnt-out hearths, ashy doorways and the soiled shine of the stone floors leads us to the admin offices. Windows, smothered with heavy curtains, force sunlight out, lest it may contaminate the vile deeds many say are going on under all the formality. Sallow walls, with peeling paint and cracking interiors, line the single path that we have to take. 

                The admin offices are marked by dusty wooden doors. Adjacent to them is a spiral staircase, which runs, rickety in the darkness, to where the magistrate resides for his duties. Today, however, he seems to be promised forth and he mingles with the unattended administrators and the district landlords. As we pass, I notice the glitter of the rings on his fingers, sinister and tempting, like a snare, daring me to confront the absolute power of his wealth.

                But it is not the leering air of the magistrate that makes me uneasy. It is the person he converses with: Tairpar. As we cross his line of sight he pauses to give us a stare, as he continues to chew on a snack of _Timkin_ meat fried in _Shadewilt _oil, supposedly a delicacy to the Solbrecht natives. His four arms are moving as he eats, crumbs from the snack's flaky crust scattering like orange blots on his black leather gloves. He whispers to the magistrate.

                He turns and glances at us. Now, I feel more wary than ever. I have rarely met our magistrate but his gaze is piercing, and cold and malevolent. In his eyes I do not see Iain's plain mischievousness, or Vanessa's silent hopeful aspirations. But I see bitter blackness, with boreholes of malicious thoughts and deep unnerving plans. He is the one whom I fear. 

                Father urges us along, and we enter one of administrator's offices. We are beset by a secretary, who asks for our names and our professions. Then he beckons us to enter the admin hall where all of the city's money changes hands. As usual, there are no windows, not even a picture hanging on the wall. The surroundings are painted black, with a air-conditioning device spluttering in the centre of the hall. Smoke, choking and putrid, wafts slowly from the unburnt nicotine stick being sucked by one of them. We approach the administrator who motions to us

                The secretary announces us: "Michael Lui, moneychanger, with daughter Iris, and Edric Niel, historic archivist."

                We stand before the alien's wry gaze, his short self made imposing by the oversized table and chair. He pretends to be interested, though in reality he cannot wait for us to pour out the money so he suck another stick of nicotine.   

                His voice is hoarse and cackling. "So you have come to pay your taxes?" he hacks brutally.

                "We are promised to Zechaat for the trade fair," Father declares.

                "And you are going for the purpose of money changing and money lending?" he asks.

                "Yes, we will travel in a registered craft owned by Mr. Niel here," Father submits a license to the administrator, who snatches it away and examines it with steely, wild eyes. 

                "Do you intend to make profit from this trip?" he questions.

                "Neighbours and friends have given us items of value that wish to be sold at the fair, and we intend to make take a percentage of the sales as a form of interest."

                "Any non-human neighbours?"

                "None," Father replies swiftly.

                "So the if your accounts in your journals are settled," the alien says, wheezing and groaning under the effect of the addictives, "your taxes this term, plus the duties on transport to Zechaat, the interest payable on taxes and the carriage inwards on your goods adds up to… seven hundred and ninety-one debits."  

                Seven hundred over debits! That amount of money will keep the house clean and well fed for a year. This is worse than robbery, but plunder, blatant plunder. Reluctantly, I aid Father in the submission of money and the administrator counts it hungrily, seeking for a debit we may have missed. But he has a deeper look; amidst the frenzied gathering of our debit plates, he smothers a look of inattention – I'm sure Mr. Niel has seen it too – a look that shows the boredom of money's power.

                The administrator completes the accounting, fast with his four arms, and enters our balanced accounts in his computer. He hands over to Father a receipt; he always asks for receipts, because when the computer records are erased, for reasons unknown, a receipt is sometimes the only proof of our hefty payment.            

                "Your payment is made. Thank you for your contribution," he says snorting heavily, trying to suck all life out of his addictive. "Have a safe journey." 

                We do not intend to linger. We exit the dark hall, my eyes squinting to adjust to the bright lights of the main corridor. As we leave, however, the magistrate and his entourage notice our departure and they move towards us, so we cannot avoid them.

                "Going to the fair?" the magistrate queries. 

                "Yes, we are," Mr. Niel replies, his posture slightly bent to show submission, "we thank you for your kindness in allowing us this freedom on our travels. And Alvin, the herbalist, sends his regards."

                Freedom? Whenever we don't pay our taxes they lock us up in our neighbourhoods.

                "So he does," the magistrate responds idly, his hands absent-mindedly sifting through papers in his folder, "remember to pay your tax."

                "We don't intend to forget," Father says, "and we have paid our dues to the council a few minutes ago."

                "Indeed, we have," Mr. Niel adds, "our intentions are good, magistrate, and we wish for nothing but peace with the council and the people of the city."              

                "Ah, we wish for peace too," the magistrate acknowledges, "and for your safety."

                A vice grips my heart, while my fists turn tense, balling into fists. Father and Mr. Niel's faces sting with the silent insult, their aggravation hidden beneath their instinct for control. The magistrate, his eyes flickering with nothing less than malevolence, turns towards me. He seems to notice me for the first time, and his eyes stay too long on my hair and the tan on my inner arms. 

                "I see you have a daughter," he speaks, his voice deathly soft, though I am certain Father has no problem catching his words. "Do you intend for her to follow in your footsteps?"

                "Yes, my lord. She is an obedient girl, with many skills…"

                "Pity, she could be put to more use elsewhere," he interrupts, and my cheeks burns at his lewd taunting. "But if not so, make sure you teach her to keep proper accounts."

                Tairpar smirks and my Father has his head bowed either in humiliation or ignorance. The magistrate finishes with us, and we leave hurriedly, not wanting to be even in his gaze any longer. As we step into the bright sunlight outside, I feel energy refresh my pride – and my rage.

                "The bastard!" I spit and my face reddens in anger. "What gives him the bloody right? I wish I could stuff every words he speaks back down his rotten mouth!"

                Father chides me. "Do not speak ill of the people who protect us," he says, although I know he too has his dignity bruised. Mr. Niel sighs, Father nods approvingly to him. He seems to have taken heart now; is it because the intimidation is over – or that he has seen his daughter determined and rebellious? I do not know.

Written by shelter 


	6. Road to Zechaat

**5. Road to Zechaat**

**A/N:**_ Unable to think of a better title. I know it's been some time, but as my O'levels approach the time that I can put aside to writing will continue to dwindle (yes, the worst is yet to come). But because I've viewed my writing as something a level above, or on par to, my examinations, I will hopefully pen down a few more chapters before the papers officially begin, on Nov 2nd. Just several pointers though.   
The scene with the slave in this chapter was an idea I got while listening to Creed's 'Who's Got My Back' from their Weathered CD – for reasons unknown. Although I could say it was fuelled by Tigrin's continued emphasis on slavery in 'Amount To Nothing', I've tried to make it scene as short as possible, so as not to burden myself and the readers with extra characters. I've also noticed that I often fail to use characters I've already mentioned in the first few chapters. I'll try and revisit their roles later in the story. The music, which is something I hope to display emotions, will also be developed._

On the morning of our departure I arise early. The shadow of the night still rests over the city but dewdrops, fragile and glassy, have condensed upon my window. Like shimmering crystals, they capture the distant sunlight, now blue and suffused, and make me think my window is encrusted with diamonds. 

                The entire household is busy with work. Aunt Cheng prepares the provisions of food we will have to take on our journey; Mother and Michelle help Father with the last packages that need to go into the craft. Mr. Niel chews on a snack as he waits. Iain is nowhere in sight. Neither is Vanessa.

                My heart sinks for a moment, but I remember we are to leave soon, so I hasten. In my haversack I dump my clothes that I need for this journey, and I pick the memory clip which I need to record my best songs – if I ever get to play. Even Liwei is wide awake on a morning like this; I change into bermudas, my khaki-coloured ones, for I will save the slacks for later, then don a shirt and jacket for modesty.

                The moment I reach downstairs, Aunt Cheng reproaches my sluggishness, and orders me to fill my stomach with some breakfast or she will not allow me to step out of the house. With so little time to prepare, breakfast is nothing special. I eat the pastries she's made from dough and sweetened syrup; they taste sweet when you first bite them, but once in your mouth they are as bland as leaves. But the dough weighs down in your stomach, and keeps you satisfied for hours. Aunt Cheng returns from delivering her provisions, my progress with breakfast and chides me again.

                "Iris, will you hurry up and eat?" she says in her trying, frustrated voice. "Time is short and your father will be leaving!"

                "He says in half-an-hour's time," I retort.

                "But Mr. Niel's son, the older, handsome one – what's his name – Iain, is coming. A well brought up girl should make herself presentable for male guests." 

                I almost chortle as I eat. Aunt Cheng finds sadistic satisfaction pointing to me how masculine I am. She complains girls should not listen to anything more than the words of her elders, let alone music. She rebukes my cooking skills – Michelle has always been the better one – and never fails to tell me a story of how things were done when she was my age. She doesn't like my slacks, either. 

                A thought crosses my mind. "Aunt Cheng, when were you and Uncle married?"

                I can see the surprise in her face at asking such an awkward question at this hour, but she is only too delighted to give me the details: "Back on Earth," she says, blushing, "I was fifteen and he was seventeen." 

                "Then when were Mother and Father married?" I inquire.

                "When there was an Earth, your Mother at sixteen and…" she frowns suddenly at me, "Ai! So many questions! Well brought up girls don't ask: they only do! Finish your breakfast quickly."

                "I'm just wondering," I mumble.

                "Think carefully before you choose a husband, girl," she adds, her finger waving threateningly, as if she just had an afterthought, "he should be able to take care of you and protect you, especially in times such as these. How old are you anyway, Iris?"

                "Sixteen," I say. "Iain is sixteen too."

                "Then it is time he thought about marriage then!" she exclaims. A stone sinks into my stomach, heavier than the dough; it feels as if someone has used my stomach for a guitar, strumming an unpleasant tune. I don't see it, but I'm sure I my cheeks are a burning of red. Marriage? I hope I haven't given Aunt Cheng any weird ideas.

                I remember my dreams, and decide it is safe enough to ask her.  

                "Aunt Cheng, have you ever had a recurring dream?" I ask again.

                She doesn't rebuke, but her voice is low and serious. "No, why?"

                "I keep on having dreams that I – we – were back…" I stammer as the word 'home' rolls in my tongue, "…on Earth. I dream about our old bungalow and the quarry behind it and then everything turns to screaming and shouting. I seem to wake up every time, in a pool of sweat, after I have these dreams." 

                "Dreams? They could be omens, of things to come," she suggests. Aunt Cheng still holds on stubbornly to her old superstitions, "but nostalgia, and screaming: this is not a good sign." 

                Muffled noises come from outside, where there is a blur of activity.

                "Come, ah, Iris," she hastens. "Your Father is waiting, with your friends. And do not think of your troubles in your sleep, for they are just dreams."

                I try to remember her words. I pick up my haversack and follow her towards the door. _Do not think of them… they are just dreams…_

                The craft occupies the entire narrow street. Mr. Niel is talking to Jeffery, while others mill around, half-interested in our departure. Doug looks on from his balcony where the street bends, his presence ever unnerving. The back door to the craft is open, revealing a compartment stuffed full with cases and bags of things we will empty along the way or at the fair. Michelle and Liwei wait patiently by the side, in anticipation of the moment of our departure. 

                I see several figures from the corner of my eye making their way towards us. I turn; Iain is with Vanessa, one of large drums in his arms, while Mr. Perez trails behind, with some cymbals. At the sight of Vanessa and Iain together, I feel a sense of alarm well up within me; jealousy more than anything else, after my conversation with Aunt Cheng, flashes, then subsides. I try to blot out thoughts of distrust out of my mind.  

                I have always treated Vanessa as my equal but I know, in some ways, the lengths, how impulsive, she is capable of.

                But my distrust is replaced with optimism. Iain smiles at me, taking my hand. With this distraction, he loses his balance, tries to correct, overcorrects and is on the verge of being buried by the bass drum until I take the other end and balance the load.

                I peer over the drum at him, trying to put on one of my most mischievous leers. "I take it you couldn't manage?"

                "I could, until you came along," he justifies, his face feigning hurt.

                "Weakling," Vanessa mutters. 

                We load the bass drum onto the open space on one side, and the remaining drums and cymbals on the other. With Iain's bass guitar slung across his back, there is barely enough room for the three of us. Not enthusiastic in being cooped up in the craft's storage compartment, we mill around outside.

                I approach Mother and she hugs me, pressing me close to her. I feel her warm arms grasp me in a motherly embrace; a kiss lands on my head, and when I pull out her eyes look at me longingly. 

                "Now don't get into any trouble now," she warns, "and don't go off-road during the journey. Take care of your Father for me."

                I think, strangely, of Iain. "That wouldn't be a problem, Ma, if he doesn't go out of the way."

                "And make sure he doesn't overwork himself," Mother warns, "tell him to avoid the hawkers and the peddlers. Don't buy from them."

                "Of course, we won't," I reassure her, the threat of disease lurking at the back of my mind.

                Father hugs Michelle, then gently pats Liwei on the head. "What shall I get you from the fair?" he asks.

                "Sneakers!" chirps Liwei. He has always longed for proper shoes; he wears worn sandals all the time because Jeffery helps him patch it up with leather.

                "And you Michelle?"

                I cannot but marvel at her quiet, thoughtful disposition. "A bracelet maybe, or a token from Zechaat so I can say that you've been there."

                Father acknowledges. As he finishes his final words with Mother, I say to Michelle: "Don't worry. If we see any human kids in Zechaat, we will tell them about you, and they'll give us something as a gift."

                Michelle's smile is warm and pleasant, but time presses. Vanessa is still in a deep farewell conversation with Mr. Perez. If it weren't for this being a happy occasion, I would have thought they were weeping. I approach them, and out my hand on Vanessa's shoulder for comfort.

                "Take good care of yourself, _Vanne_," Mr. Perez says, "and remember not to get into any unwanted trouble."

                "I won't." she replies, her hands still interlocked with her fathers'.

                He turns next to me. "Watch over her, Iris, and don't let her do anything rash."

                "Don't worry, Mr. Perez, Iain and I will watch her." 

                "Goodbye then!"

                As we enter the craft, people – our loved ones – bid us farewell, on a trip across the continent to a different city. The space is limited, but we make use of whatever room we have to make ourselves comfortable. The window of the back door, and the flap that opens to the drivers, are our only means of seeing the world while inside this metal hulk. I see Michelle and Liwei and Aunt Cheng and Mother are waving – the craft lurches forward, picking up speed – I wave back hoping they can see me – then we round the bend – their faces disappear into a solid wall – and they are gone…

The first few miles of our trip are spent within the city. Zyjushem, like many of the outlying cities, is connected to Zechaat by roads, passes and highways. The cumbersome vehicle, burdened with weight, gives a steady hum as it ploughs along the road. Sometimes the craft will pick up speed, and the buildings, the roads, would be nothing but a blur of scenery. Other times, the vehicle slows to a boring crawl. Mr. Niel thinks the engine is dying.

                Nonetheless by the afternoon we have left Zyjushem behind, and have nothing but a single-lane tarred road and signs at various intervals to lead us on. The road is deserted, and I remind Father we must stick to the road. I have often heard stories of bandits and all sorts of other aliens waiting for victims along off-roads.  

                The Solbrecht landscape, however, is no more encouraging. A low mist hands over the ground, cleaving the brownish grass. The scrubland of tangled vines and wilted brambles extend as far as the eye can see on both sides of the road. Leafless trees guard intersections; the entire landscape is devoid of life, or beauty. Stripped forests stand against the grey sky like the strings of a broken guitar. Shrubs, some with leaves, are gnarled and ragged. 

                As Mr. Niel predicts, we cross the invisible lines and enter the vast wilderness of the Solbrecht's interior. Now the road has widened; parts of it are tarried, while signs give better directions. Traffic increases, and right now there is a stream of crafts and other vehicles along the road.   

                Mr. Niel asks, "Where are you from? Where are you headed?" The answers are all the same: to the fair at Zechaat to trade. But they come from all the outlying cities: Fermraeth, Wleed, Zargekra. Many are friendly, while others treat us with suspicion. They keep their distance, and whisper to each other behind our backs. 

                As nightfall nears we reach a small community which, like everything around it, is bleak and dreary. It lies off the main road, but it is too hard to avoid, even amongst the overgrown brush. Across the community lies a huge ridge of rock, surrounded by excavations, as if to mark the community's presence. A quarry has been cut into the rock, so that it looks like a chunk has been blown off the ridge. Its sides are rusty orange with limestone, the pools a shade of sickly green. Mining scars, red with rust, mark the ridge like wounds licking up its dusty sides.  

                There is nothing here, except the desolate wasteland.

                In the community we find lodging in a squat building by the wayside – the only lodge in town. Crowded with other travelers, Mr. Niel offers to park the vehicle while we find a room for ourselves. The innkeeper, a burly, Solbrecht native, looks down on us with both disdain and exhaustion. 

                "Room? Everyone wants a room!" he bemoans, "I cannot do anything but tell them there are no more rooms if they are not willing to sacrifice their capital for it!"

                Father takes out a handful of debit plates. "We can pay," he offers.

                The innkeeper smirks, or is it a sneer? "You humans, always using your money," he says slyly to us. "You'd think it was illegal to accept your debits, but well, what can a poor native do but accept it?" he turns to the doorway behind the counter, "Maya! Bring these customers' luggage to their rooms!"  

                Father and Iain are ushered towards the stairs by the innkeeper. Then, as we follow, Vanessa and I see him. 

                A boy, our age, is standing very still in the doorway. His clothes are torn and filthy, his face soiled with a streak of dried blood caked above the left ear. One of his arms is red with welt marks of mites and ticks; his muddied feet are bare, his lips a blood-red swollen. I cannot help but stare back, but my eyes forced themselves down to the chain that binds his hands.

                "Maya!" the innkeeper bellows, his hand coming down forcefully on the boy's cheek. He stumbles but quickly picks himself up, reeling. "How many times must I tell you not to delay! We have a business to run. Now take these bags up to the customers' rooms!"

                He humbly bows as she approaches us, but I pick up my guitar case and say to him: "Thanks, I can manage."

                Still, he continues to stare, as if we are a species so profound or outlandish. Vanessa looks around, afraid the innkeeper might see the boy's inaction and punish him again. I want to say something, but the words that come out of my mouth say instead: "Err… will you take us to our room?"

                He is awakened from his trance; trudging, he grasps the handles of several cases, and hauls them upstairs. Unsettled and unsure of what to do, Vanessa and I follow, trying not to look left or right at the alien guests that stroll past us. They dry leathers, fashion crafts and bake delicacies for the fair. The boy Maya leads us, to the end of the passage, where two doors share on lantern. Here, he sets down the luggage.

                "Thank you," Vanessa says. 

                But Maya stuns us. He throws himself at Vanessa's feet, and begs, whimpering, crying. Then he seizes her hands with his flaking, wrinkled ones. Vanessa recoils in surprise but he clutches them, not wanting to let go, kissing them, rubbing them against his wet cheeks.

                "Please, miss, let me follow you…" he pleads, "I don't wish to stay… any longer… no more longer. You show me kindness, miss… please allow me to follow you."

                Vanessa turns to me; I can tell from her eyes she is thunderstruck. And honestly so am I. We did not anticipate this; we have no human slaves in Zyjushem – except in the magistrate's quarters. We did not foresee how it thrives in this wilderness.

                "Please, miss," he prostrates himself again, kissing Vanessa's feet, "please take me away… I no tell, I promise… I just want away…"

                "MAYA!"

                The innkeeper's voice booms from beyond the bend in the passage. The boy shudders, and is on his feet. He holds Vanessa tightly still. Then he gives in; will broken and chains rattling, he heeds his master's orders. He doesn't look back.

                Vanessa looks at me; I can tell she is trying to study my reaction.

                But in the end she voices my thoughts, pushing open the door: "There was nothing in our power that we could've done."

                I am unable to sleep. My thoughts often wander back home, where Michelle and Liwei always whisper in their beds, and of the cooling night air. Here in the lodge the air-conditioning makes the place stuffy; the room is small and enclosed. Mr. Niel arrives later, but we don't tell any of the adults what we have seen. With Mr. Niel insisting that Iain sleep in their room, Vanessa and I have a room to ourselves. 

We eat some food, conserve some for the rest of the journey. I take out my guitar from its case, and begin to tune my chords. I can hear Iain's bass guitar from across the walls. Slowly I pick a tune, a simple one, with just three chords, and try to create a song. Vanessa watches, but later goes to bed exhausted. My silent music fills the room, sad and full of emotion. 

                 I imagine I have no eyes now, letting my hands and imagination              lead me. The first thought that comes to my mind is of the slave boy, still serving other guests. My hands now guide my thoughts; they come down sharply on chords and pick on them, until my tune has become a song. Eyes closed, my hands repeat the tune over and over again; voices, singing, form in my mind, and soon I am singing too, whispering softly.

                And again I think of Maya and how he had begged us. Now the music pulls at my heart. The song is gloomy, sad, wanting – to be freed and expressed. I forget myself and my physical weariness; it is a strange thing, feeling sad because of music. My voice lessens to a low undertone now, as I two pairs of hands guide me: one picking at the guitar, one in chains. 

In the morning arise, and leave hastily. Having paid for our stay, we have a miserable breakfast of bread crusts dipped in sweet milk. Some of the aliens regard us casually, others ignore us completely. The innkeeper, is voice coarse from ordering his slaves around, sends us off. I hate his smile; I never see Maya again.

                On the road again our mood loosens up a bit, and we begin to talk. The landscape is still bitter and hostile, but the greying skies have given way to some sunshine. Travelers clog the roads; the sheer flow of traffic extends across the highway in a straight line of crafts, both big and small. And finally, we meet fellow humans.

                We meet them, company by company, and Mr. Niel decides we would be more secure with them. Like us, their destination is the fair, and they have brought goods – in innumerable amounts – ranging from jewelry, crafted pottery, food and antiques. I have never seen so many humans gathered at one place before; though good-natured as they are, I notice our large numbers make other travelers uneasy. So let them be then, on the road to Zechaat!

                Towards noon our food supplies expire and others share their provisions. The taste – for the first time in months – of a spiced meal is like heaven! In return for help later at the fair, we get waffles, slices of meat and lukewarm soup. We laugh; Mr. Niel talks about the old days, and we are content.             

                But we do not wish to live off our friends. We break away from the main group for a moment and stop at one of the communities to buy food. Only one small-sized alien is present, tending stocks of _jhowel _game and acres of grain. 

                We purchase several slices of meat and a bushel of cereal. The alien is always looking around. His single-antennae pricked high with alertness. "How much for the purchase?" asks Father.

                "Fifty debits," he replies, he spins around again, and there is added malice in his voice, "it's a good thing I am tending the field today. If it were my friends, they would've charged higher, or turned you away."

                "Then for our kindness, we are thankful," Mr. Niel acknowledges, gesturing. Once in the craft, though, the alien disappears hastily back into his dwelling.

                Vanessa whispers to me and Iain, "Why did he lie? I didn't see anybody else."

                "He was afraid," Iain suggests, "by our numbers, so he threatened us. I think our presence is making the aliens wary." 

                On our last night before we reach Zechaat, I lie in the open with Vanessa, who tells me of all the unusual things that have gone on today. A tent has been provided for us; I try to practice my chords, but I feel too weary to do anything. Lying on my back, I listen to Vanessa as she speaks.

                She tells me of her and Iain's meeting with another human girl from the other travelers when after dinner. I had been helping Father with unloading all our outdoor gear, so I had missed everything. They had been approached by this girl; her eyes were deep green, her red hair straight and sublime. Vanessa says she wore leather jeans and an overcoat. Her words were directed at Iain.

                She had asked him: "Do you travel alone?"

                Iain's reply had been short and sharp. "My Father is in the craft behind me, with some of my friends."

                Then she had made the offer. "If it is not too much trouble, perhaps even as a human like me you require a moment of pleasure," her eyes flashed. The top button of her overcoat was undone, and Vanessa reckons Iain could have seen the nape of her neck downwards. "And if I may be honoured to be that object you desire…" 

                Vanessa tells me of Iain's response: "Miss, I am accounted for. It wouldn't be proper if I break a promise."

                The girl had looked crestfallen, like a wounded puppy. Iain had turned his back on her, leaving her in the darkness between the crafts. Vanessa followed him back, saying Iain had never looked more guilty. 

                We stare dreamily up into the night sky, blanketed with tiny sparks of stars. "He must really like you then," Vanessa says to me, her voice releasing thin wisps of vapour in the cold night air, "to refuse that girl. You'd think a rough guy like Iain wouldn't hesitate."

                I punch her in the shoulder, but I do consider her words. Iain had been free of his father and had the right to make his own choice. But he had chosen otherwise, and suddenly, I feel a flush starting up my cheeks. For the first time, I see some sort of gallantry through all his exuberance.

                So Iain must really care for me then. But I do not know. All I can think of are fantasies of the two of us singing together on a stage before millions and millions of people. I close my eyes; I can almost hear the chords I play, as I clutch my guitar close to me. My fantasies soon slip into dreams. I can feel a longing inside of me so strong that I draw my hands back, to surrender to the music. The music surrounds me, and voices echo in song. 

My guitar seems to be playing by itself, as my hands quiver and shake. I can hear Iain's voice now, strong and sure through the music. He sings as the music overtakes everything.

                And I will dance.

_Written by shelter_


	7. Gail

**6. Gail**

**_Note:_**_ Finally, the O'levels are over… and now all I can say is that I may have too much time on my hands than I can even imagine. As such I will do my best to continue 'Junkie', although much of the content is still subject to whether I am inspired enough to write or not. I apologise for the dreadful delay in uploading this chapter; although a greater part of it was written before my O'levels I just didn't have enough time to complete it._

_                 If you're wondering, the slight disagreement in tone and writing styles at the end of this chapter are due to the five-week gap in which they were written. Some of the stuff, including the imagery of the fair in detail, is taken from memory, and I do apologise if I unknowingly slip into vague recollections. As for Gail, I suppose it's pretty obvious who she's modeled after. The idea was carried forward from October until now after watching Avril Lavigne during one of her performances, and having a subsequent talk to my skating friends about skateboarding. I understand that I may have just too many characters, so my purpose from here on will be attempting to develop them slowly, but surely._

_                And I am grateful for all the support. Though it may not show, I am thankful that words are enough. To Rys and Tigrin, especially. Won't be forgetting you guys in a hurry._

Already, from afar there is no mistaking the focus of all Solbrecht. We always travel early, to avoid the crowd, and this morning our three-day journey gets its ultimate reward: reaching Zechaat – and the fair. 

                I have often heard stories about the capital, and its size and endless landscapes of metropolises. I remember Spike and Rusty saying that Zechaat was a centre of universe, so dense with living and commerce that it crowded the walls and blocked out the sky. It is the dwelling place of the chancellors that keep the planet running and profitable. To humans, it may be the only place where our trade is accepted openly.

                An hour before reaching our destination, Zechaat looms out from the road. In the cold morning a low hanging fog shrouds everything, but without warning a city emerges from it. Its skyscrapers, carved like a giant's toys into grotesque shapes with shards of broken glass for good measure, crowd the horizon in a black mass of development. The road, as we travel, is wide and tarried, five lanes abundant with traffic as we advance on the city.

                At the intersection traffic is at its heaviest, and the stench of the masses upon masses of races, whether alien or not, is overwhelming. The road, like the rough, asphalt tongue of hideous beast, leads us straight into the heart of the city, into its bowels of inhabitants and structures.

                I am astounded, half-awed; I have never seen a city this big before. How tiny Zyjushem would seem beside Zechaat! Mr. Niel opens one of the side windows to let air circulate; the odour of a million bodies eking out a living and the very soil that makes up such a city, enter into our vehicle. The streets, broad lamp-lined avenues devoid of any greenery, bustle with pedestrians and the hundreds of crafts on the roads. 

                Within the inner districts, I feel as if the city has closed in on us. On all sides we are enclosed by structures, which seem even more monstrous up close. Windows in tiny blots of white, spiral up skyscrapers shaped like piercing spires and crumbling snares of steel. I am right; the sky has been replaced with sharp crowns of buildings whose ends, like torn pieces of paper, cut into the Solbrecht sun. Advertising billboards, hanging at crazy angles in every corner of the street, flash their products in the acid green neon of a thousand different alien languages.

                I think: amidst this chaos there must be some form of order. And then for the first time I notice sentries patrolling the street, surveillance at every corner not taken up by a billboard and the careful disposition of the residents – especially towards us strangers who have come to trade at the fair.

                The fair! How could I forget? As we continue towards the heart of the city, all roads converge at one large mass. It is a blinding riot of colours; on all sides it spills forth hundreds of inhabitants, satisfied with their findings. This is the trade fair, at the very centre of Zechaat, where a seemingly endless flow of ships dock and then leave, selling, trading, buying, exchanging… 

                The fair is so huge that the docks are unable to contain it. The exhibition centres, erected by metal scaffoldings covered by canvas that house the best traders in all the system, are flooded to the brim. The excess of traders set up their stalls along the roadsides, wooing passersby as they trek the next kilometre to the docks. Some tap on our window, others block our way. They are desperate for debits.

                At last we disembark. Mr. Niel finds an empty plot near an abandoned building not too far off from the docks, then we unload all our items onto a cart. We are ready to trade! There is a living to be earned. At this moment, music must come later.

                "Stay close together," Father instructs, "the crowd can be pressing, and the more we keep close, the less chance we have of getting lost."

                Already among the no-driving streets that lead to the docks, I edge my way, nudging, pushing, among the hundreds of aliens. Hardly anyone pays us any attention. Those unable to get stalls within the centres and docks pester us with bargains and purchases. An alien, dragging a hover cart not too unlike ours, cries out: "A wonderful piece of machinery! Helps balance the weight well."

                We pass him, Vanessa and Iain's eyebrows raised in sarcasm. Of course, no one will want something which every trader should rightfully have even before the fair. But this shows us one thing too: in Zechaat, trade does not discriminate – whether dangerous or crazy or human. 

                Right now on every corner, in every direction flows the ceaseless exchange of debits. Aliens barter loudly, ignorant to the jumbled din they make in their native tongues. Customers complain: a dysfunctional filter system, weathered engines, obsolete technology… and the traders attempt to persuade them with sweet words. The responsibility, the duty of plain, simple trade knows no bounds, as aliens accost us, to buy their goods. A well-bred businessman like Keane Greening would scoff at these rag-tag merchants – lacking everything but their persistence. 

                And the scent, the odour that saturates the air – of food, of frying, of glazing, of grilling – overpowers.

                Outside the exhibition halls hawkers and sellers shout their wares, advertise their recipes. As we pass, I see _jhowel _meat simmering in broth, bubbling in viscous pools of honey, glazed so much with sweetness that they shine like silver. Solbrecht grain cakes, encrusted with sugar, beam through a hawker's glass cabinet – for just half a debit apiece! The almond syrup, baked and crafted into éclairs and strips of candy, make my stomach beg in hunger. Oh I wish, that partaking in temptation were as good as being seduced by it.

                Then there are still the biscuits, the muffins, the donuts, secreting vanilla and the tang of a thousand flavours of berry and fruit… my senses besiege my will to give in. Baked fish, breaded meat, even the occasionally human hawker tossing noodles, letting into the air strands of _mee _and bits of meat, the clang as his ladle meets wok to mix the ancient strips of bean-cake and fish. Sweat falls but he doesn't care… like us, the world around is simply mesmerizing.   

                Father greets him in dialect, and he smiles, a rustic, toothy grin while is bare arms let in the slack of muscles while pausing after his strenuous activity. From their conversation, they are old friends, a term loosely linked nowadays to all humans: a meeting during evacuation, a smile on board the ship, a distant mention by another friend. He reminds of the days in the old coffee shop at the end of the asphalt road, long ago… the smell of frying comes back to me, and my mind attempts to seek the connection. The smells, the scents of long ago try to come back to me, and I link them together forcefully, hopefully. 

                And a recollection becomes reality.

                The hawker, face shining with sweat, looks at Mr. Niel, then to Iain and me. I hear him and Father communicate in thick dialect, out of our understanding, so the conversation does not carry to unwanted ears. 

                The hawker looks up at me again, then adds in broken English to Father, "set up stall, Lui?" 

                "No, not a stall," Father replies, "we reserved a place in the exhibition hall where we can get more customers."

                The hall! I cannot imagine the importance, the duty, that comes from being in a place of such opportunities. I think of the customers, the goods brought from places afar off – and Father's trading business has room among them. It is as good as being a partner among the best trades in the universe!  

                At the mere mention of the halls, Father's air holds a certain standard of dignity, even his very walk is different: not that of a lowly trader, but a merchant, the king of trades, the master of commerce. 

                Father's hawker friend makes a joke about him being outplayed, and we are off, to begin our business. The entrance to one of the halls is jammed with aliens, all clustering around the small entrance of the building. We elbow our way past the crowd, getting grunts from the aliens, who are too busy making purchases to notice us. Within the hall, however, there are no more street traders. No more hawkers on makeshift stalls, no more desperate sellers egging us to buy their wares.

                Instead, aliens sit behind their goods, of the highest class and excellence, awaiting a sale. There are hawkers, of course; again, cakes are being rolled from dough, and sugar sprinkled upon almonds and chestnuts to turn bland pieces of butter into delicacies. Aliens shout their wares: crystal carvings from Asharea, rare spores from Krondor, the latest synthetic fabrics from D'Armara. Curiosity-seekers push crowds forward, and humans, sly businessmen, offer goods at lower prices to attract customers.

                At last, we reach our stall, and Father sets up his journals. He keeps a huge patch of debits beneath his books, while he lays out the exchange rates for the hundred thousand currencies that exist in the universe.

                "Iris," he calls to me, "do the handling of the exchanges. I will observe your work."

                While Iain, Vanessa and Mr. Niel salvage through the hundreds of human stores for unusual remnants of Earth, I handle plates, coins, notes, cards and transactions. And it goes on for a week, under my Father's watchful eye. The exchange continues, until sweat lubricates each corner of my fingers, and the grit blackens my hands. Deal after deal, my hands ache as I painstakingly record each debtor, each trade, each new account, in the journals. Profits are noted, surpluses added to our till of gains and deficits written off.  

                Whether the sun rises, or night fall, I do not know. Aliens, speaking diverse languages, making adventurous promises of return, line up before our store for their turn at money. Unlike Arlheus and Glein, the traders are merry and in many ways over-sentimental towards their money. They grumble about exchange rates, but accept them grudgingly. They come willing; as long as there is money they will borrow, as long as debit plates exist they will exchange. Such passivity!

                "I will embark on a trade mission to Fauldro!" one of them exclaims optimistically, "and you will have a share of the profits, mark my words!" Promises made, Father jokes with many of the light-hearted ones. Sometimes, though, I feel skeptical. Who does Father really know who to trust, and who not to?

                After seemingly endless exchanges and recordings, Mr. Niel returns with Iain and Vanessa. I can see weariness in their eyes as well but they are not weary of boredom, of repetition. Instead, I notice a bangle on Vanessa's wrist, silver and glinting fiercely in the bright lights of the timeless hall. Mr. Niel's hands, I observe, are coarse and scarred with flaking paint. I do hope their ventures have been a success.

                "Managed to get some good buys, Lui," he addresses my Father, who is busy checking the previous day's journals, "and what treasures have yet to be found among these traders."

                "Did you meet others," I ask, blinking my eyes open. 

                "Yeah, there are hundreds of human traders spread out in every area," Mr. Niel replies enthusiastically, "and they are all friendly. Of course many say, and I must add this Lui, that the threat of the Drej hangs ever closer."

                I am pricked to attention fleetingly. I have heard stories, catching whispers from traders, of more Drej attacks. But surely they would not dare touch a place such as Solbrecht? 

                "So have I heard," Father says, but his solemn mood soon gives way to watchful observation, "nonetheless, there have been no attacks."

                For once, Mr. Niel looks my way, and he smiles warmly to me. He nods towards Father. "Let Iris have a rest, at least for a day or two. She looks quite exhausted."

I look towards Father, who eyes me cautiously.  

                To my surprise, he acknowledges with a smile of his own; it is a small one, hardly lifting from the corners of his mouth. He takes the ink pen from my grasp, the deep black stain touching his fingers. He puts a hand on my shoulder, nudging my cheek gently.

"Go, have your break, you have been a valuable helper." 

My face flushes from his praise.

"You have done enough work, and I see you are fit to handle things," he says, then adds: "take some of the things that we have promised to sell, the junk from Mr. Perez and Alvin's spices, and try to get a good price for them. And as a reward, you can take some of the profit."

                "Thank you, father!" I beam. "Thank you so very much!" My heart does a cartwheel; as I walk away from the stalls, anticipation fills my joyous heart, lightened now. The music festival beckons, and Iain, as flippant as ever, leads the way.

                We inch our way through thick crowds, constantly pushing forward to seek buys, past the sweet scents of almond paste and butter cookies burning on grilles, their aroma filling the air like some addictive. Once back at the craft, we load all the items to sell in another cart. The case from Mr. Perez, laden with precious things that I have promised a good price for, is tucked carefully on the side, along with bags of spices from the herbalist Alvin. Vanessa, her arms strapping and focused, loads the drums onto the cart. 

                "And you don't forget this," Iain emerges from the compartment, my guitar in his arms. My stained hands touch it, and at once I feel as if I have been reunited with a lost friend. I tune a chord and, like musicians decked out in our garb, head towards the incessant centre of noise drawing us forward.

It is impossible to see where the fair ends and the music festival begins. On all sides crowds, throngs of Zechaat residents, hundreds of races that I may only get to see once, traverse and jostle with us for space amidst their crushing numbers. Iain says the stage isn't too far from the fair; the endless, never-ending stream of beings seems to lead us. 

                We do our best to make a sale; our voices loud and clear, we shout, advertise, call out to anyone who wishes to make an interesting buy. Aliens approach us. They grunt, and leave coldly. Others eye our products carefully, before I argue with them for a price. One aliens seems particularly keen in Mr. Perez's transmitter radio; sensing his interest, I bid an outrageously high price. 

                He cuts by half; I raise the price again, he bids lower. Like Father has taught me, I ensure our argument for a price is short, but fruitful. I name my price to him again: a thousand debits for the transmitter radio, almost brand new and still functional. We settle, at last, for nine hundred debits. I hurry to rejoin Iain and Vanessa, separating the money from the sale from the duty I earn, my heart lightened by the sale.

                As we continue walking, only one thing guides us: the noise. It blares from deep within the crowd ahead, ever present, echoing off the buildings as if to confuse us. The crowds, still swelling, all seem to be headed in that direction. The sound is more rabble than music; even from this distance the noise has no harmony, no direction. 

                At last the echo from the buildings slowly diminish, and the buildings draw back to reveal an open expanse of land. The road gives way to grass, brown and dead, spreading out on all sides. Vehicles, their movement visible out of the corner of my eye, have enough road still to operate on at the far ends. But the crowd is so thick I can barely see the stage. We come to a point where the crowd stops moving; they are all still, some standing, eyes fixed on the spectacle before them.

                "Can't see a thing here," Iain says to me, then gestures to a parapet along a raised stone wall that keeps the road away from the crowd, "let's try over there instead."

                The mass of spectators almost overwhelms us, we fight our through them, and I with feel each accidental nudge or mishap their dissatisfaction rises. Vanessa's cart is taking up space; some aliens growl at us, but we try to take no notice. Once we are at the parapet, we are free from the dense breaths and grunts of the crowd. I stretch my arms gratefully, now that they have been released from an enclosure of bodies.

                I let out a sharp rush of breath. 

                Standing on the parapet I can see the stage clearly. It is decked out in plain blue and red, blasted with noise and dripping excitement. It stands at the front of a sea of colours; a multitude gathered to witness a festival of music, flashing, moving, before my eyes. The crowd takes in the music, utterly absorbed by it. There are no screens though, so the performers' faces are blurred specks in the explosion of countless moving faces. 

                My imagination fails me; the spectators are way more than I could ever expect.

                And I am going to sing, to play, to dance, for them? My exhilaration, the rush of fulfilling emotions, is abruptly cut short by anxiety. Yet I think to myself: this is the only audience I will ever get. I remember Maya, and the practice piece in the school before my classmates. I do not need a crowd as motivation, I tell myself. 

The music guides.

                Even Vanessa seems intimidated. "Ever occurred to you that there'll be this many?" she asks, "say, ten thousand?"

                My eyes dart from one end of the landscape to the other. The performers round their finale, and the audience gives a shout of approval. The buildings rattle on their foundations; the noise overwhelms, but settles down as the grungy, low-pitch music continues with random inputs of instruments. 

                "I think much more than that," I whisper.

                Iain, bass guitar still dangling from his hands, joins us to watch the crowd. He narrows his eyes, searching for something, and then frowns when he cannot find it. But there is no fear, no apprehension on his sweaty face.  

                "I can't find it," he finally tells us, "so I guess I'll have to ask around."

                I am confused. "Iain, what're we looking for?"               

                He descends the parapet, swinging his body coolly to one side. "The guy who said we could come and play," he explains, though I am still lost, "he's a Zechaat native, and told me we could have some time on stage. You stay here, right? I'll be back once I find him."

                He disappears into the crowd, the long neck of the bass guitar swinging recklessly in his wake.

                "Well, we might as well sit down and wait," Vanessa shrugs, "with this crowd, he's going to take some time."               

                For a second, I regard her silently; then my eyes catch a glimpse of movement in the extreme corners of my line of sight. I ignore it… and right after I see a flash of silver. I feel puzzled, as the roar of the crowd dulls out these sequences – odd… But I hear a scraping noise, followed by a shout, muffled and distant amidst the crowd's meaningless rabble. I feel it strange enough to turn my head. 

                An alien, a Zechaat native by his muscular stature, advances towards a flight of stairs leading to the foyer of one of the towering buildings on what seems like a board with little, rounded wheels. He kicks the ground, accelerating, making head for the rail that cuts straight down the stairs. For a minute, I think he is going to crash into rail.

                But at the last moment, he leaps; for a second there is a period of freefall, plunging towards the rail, sure to shatter his thin limbs on it. But to my amazement he lands square on the rail, flips to his board and lands safely on the ground. His friends, whom I haven't noticed until now, applaud. 

I wish to applaud too, until I see the alien is doing something. His hands are out, long and crooked, half-waving, half-gesturing. He has his gaze fixed on something covered by the building's outer wall. I realise soon enough: he is intimidating someone. _Challenge me_, he says. 

                Another group advances; there is no mistaking their figures. 

                Humans. 

One of them lowers his board and attempts the challenge. He lands on the rail too, very evenly, but slips as his board gives way beneath him. I want to shout – as his legs crumble; overcorrecting, he loses his balance, falling to the ground on his back. 

                The alien mocks as the challenger picks himself up, insults flying. 

                But another challenger confronts the alien; I notice a streak of ginger, a ponytail, dangling from the back of the challenger's coat, as she circles on her board, defiant. She jumps, and lands, wobbly, on the rail, but her wheeled board does not depart from underneath her. She suddenly appears to have overcorrected, but instead the board grinds, producing that scraping noise again. The challenger, skids across the rail, tipping the board skyward. She defies gravity for a moment, and lands, perfectly. 

                The alien looks crestfallen, and I see him curse, while his friends get to their feet, abashed. Before I can stop myself, I applaud, but it is lost in the incessant background crush.

                I turn to Vanessa; she too has been watching the show. I gesture towards the human whose stunt beat the opponents'. She nods, and we agree without speaking to each other. I pick myself up from the ground and we walk towards them.  

                We hear a hail of shouts, and the aliens advance towards the small human group gathered around the new champion. My stomach lurches; I know what will happen and who will win. I want to grab Vanessa and run, but then… I see one glance my direction, passively.

He fumbles his fingers and talks to his friend. He sees me too, but does not wait for me to arrive. By the time Vanessa and I get to the railed stairwell, we meet four humans, no more aliens. Vanessa and I are no doubt puzzled.

                 One of them, the one which unsuccessfully made the challenge earlier, points at us, speaking to his friends: "See? They're the ones who were watching us, and the draggers got cold feet when they saw they were outnumbered!"       

                "Nice move," Vanessa says, and points to the board. "What do you call this?"     

                The girl steps up, and answers, "Skateboarding. Been something one of the older kids started doing, and since it's a good way to kill time, why not?" 

                She removes her tight cap; the first thing I notice is her hair, sleek and straight. Vanessa gives me a sly grin from the corner of my eye, for whatever reason I do not know. The girl, her hands tugging the torn lapel of her coat, acknowledges our silence. Again I see a deep wash of hazel in her eyes.

                She puts out her hand to me and Vanessa. "Gail," she tells us, "you can call us the scavengers." 

                "So I take it you guys are from elsewhere," the younger of them speaks up enthusiastically, dismounting from his board, "came for the music? Or the fair?"

                "To tell the truth, both," I reply. "You must form some community here."

                Gail nods. "A ghetto, a small one, deep inside the inner district." She stretches out her hand and tugs on my shirt, examining the fabric. I only then do seem to realise her ragged windbreaker, and polyester slacks soiled at where her knees are. I notice her eyes narrow; suddenly I am wary of what she'll say. 

                "I guess life as a musician's way better," she says, half-jokingly, and her friends chuckle, but she never takes her eyes off me. She points to the guitar. "Scavengers are the masters of the skateboard here. If your clothes make out what you seem to be, then you must be just as damn good as we are."

                I feel the tease of her taunt; I force a grin. "You can see it for yourself when we go on stage," I say, trying hard to be friendly.

She grimaces, her mood to challenge undeterred  "Tell you what. Let's say we have a bit of a bet here," she suggests, "are you up for it?"

My mind shifts to Iain for a while, strapping and his bass guitar draping down from his shoulder. I silently overrule Vanessa with a gesture. "Only if you'll come to watch us."

"Right," Gail nods, her friends gathering round her, "we'll watch. And if we think you're not as good as our skateboarding, we'll have your guitar."

Vanessa looks uncertainly between us.

"But," I add, "if we're better, you let me have that skateboard." I point at Gail's wrecked board. 

She laughs, and I see glimpses of her opponent's arrogance in her. "Agreed then. You'd better get on and practice, 'cause we'll be watching."             

                "Yeah," I say, cutting off Vanessa's objections, as we begin to walk towards the parapet, "we'll see you down at the stage."  
                "Right, and what's your name again? Didn't quite get it."

                "Iris," I call out, as we get more distant, "Iris and Vanessa."

_Written by shelter_


	8. Higher

**7. Higher**

**_Note: _**_I take this chapter as the midpoint of my story, and I hope the descriptions of the concert will be enough to convince you to read this to the end. I wrote this chapter over a period of ten days, trying to get the right scenes for the concert and trying, hopefully not in vain, to get the music through into words. I am trying not to disappoint, considering the immense time and effort combined in this chapter, or more specifically the second-half of it. I get doubts too, on whether 'Junkie' is worth a great piece of my time in earlier 2003, and probably something emotional as well, where my writings meet. I have yet far decided, but if agreed, I know how everything will turn out. Though you may have to wait until I can get everything on the site.   
                 Just so I don't take any of the credit: 'Are You Ready', 'Never Die', 'Beautiful' and 'Higher' are songs from Creed's second album _Human Clay_. They are the real conspirators behind the 'music which possesses' and they were quite an inspiration during this chapter. 'Freedom Fighter' is a song from Creed's more recent release _Weathered_._

With Iain leading us through the crowd, Vanessa and I follow in his wake, the cart of instruments gliding behind us silently. Aliens glance at us, their faces sulky and eyes mocking, but I suppose the mood has been swayed by their music. I have never seen aliens dance before. It seems unnatural; I wonder how they will react to our music? 

                Over the heads of the crowd, the stage swims into view. It occupies the entire length of my vision. Basking in the dim sunlight and crudely built together out of metal and wood, it vibrates with each deep bass note, emitting, invisible, from the monstrous speakers that line either end like pillars. Curtains, crude and drawn, in turn flank the speakers. On the stage, a group performs. Vanessa chortles; I am glad it has been smothered by the blanket of raised arms of the crowd.

                All I can make out are gangly, tall performers. All have their mouths stuffed into mikes, and they please the crowd with their incoherent sounds. A blaze of electronic noises and instruments throbs in our ears, bouncing around aimlessly in the walls of my mind. I attempt to ignore it, but I am forced to endure its onslaught as we near the towering speakers. Sometimes the noise of the crowd drowns the sound. I hope that will be the extent of their emotion when we take the stage to perform.

                "Hey, look!" Iain gestures, his voice nearly lost in the blare.      

                His fingers point in the direction of the performers. I see a guitarist is among them, brandishing an outrageous instrument. I try to separate his music from the incessant noise, and find it in a same rhythm of faint, sour notes. Iain smiles wickedly, wearing his "I know damn well we can do better than that" look. His eyes glint with the same strength I remember seeing in the classroom during the rehearsal. I cannot help but be eager.  

                As if we have crossed some invisible barrier, the noise from the speakers fades away immediately when we reach the field in the shadow of the stage. Other groups are there too, some glum-faced, others practising but all aliens. I wonder if they have ever heard human music before? Iain motions us towards a rickety flight of steps, its landing hidden by the vast drape of a curtain. 

                Inside, the light grows dim and the stuffy. Iain approaches an alien, his face partly obscured by shadow and curtain, while barking orders to sound engineers and those manning the control board concealed somewhere. At the sight of Iain, he recoils. 

                "Ah Iain, I see your band has arrived," his tone is condescending, chatty to the point of insult, yet Iain takes no notice. "I hope you've practised hard. We have a demanding crowd this year."                

                "Because last year you didn't feature humans," Iain retorts, "so can we go on now?"

                The alien appears to scowl, and a stream of light reveals his face for only a moment. Gaunt chin, bristled face, slit-like eyes… I begin to feel uneasy. He is not a Solbrect native, let alone an inhabitant of Zechaat.

                "Not yet, not yet, I'm afraid. We go on a first-come-first-served policy, Iain," he says carefully, his words spaced strangely. "And a bunch of… non-humans… came first. Brimming with talent they are."

                He lifts the drape, gestures to an assorted group of aliens with one Akrennian, two with two pairs of arms and no guitar. My eyes narrow. I certainly hope Iain has done the right thing to bargain with this one. 

                "Swell, we don't mind if they go first, but on condition that we go next," Iain tells him. "Is that all right with you?"

                The alien looks past Iain to the shadowed figures of me and Vanessa. I see his eyes narrow too, in disapproval or dimness or both. Behind him, the thundering sounds of alien percussion shake the false wall through which performers enter by. 

"Remember one thing Iain: your time on stage is limited, so don't fool around," he warns, and I wonder where does this threat come from. "My sound engineers will cut the power when I say so. I can't have… people playing out there for so long. You know what my company's method of payment is like."

                "See how we entertain the crowd," Iain grins, and Vanessa gives me a thumbs-up. I only hope they are right. "Don't worry, the crowd came for a reason, and we'll try to give them their time's worth. How much do we have then? Thirty minutes? Forty?"

                "Half-and-hour, and that's all. Each time each group goes stage the crowd cheers," he says, "can't have that for the entire week, can I?"

                "Time is money, I see," Vanessa replies. "Figures."

                "It doesn't matter," the alien moves back into the shadows, and only his feet are visible now, "you'll be playing for free."          

                Iain's hands ball into fists, while Vanessa's face contorts, and her eyes turn small and fierce. "Really?" she questions, her tone a masterpiece of malice.

                "Afraid so," the alien responds, his tone descending to apathy, "if the crowd thinks they don't want humans, they might do whatever they want to this stage. And do you know the expense of setting up a free concert… you've been a risk, Iain, you and your ladies here. I can't afford anything more than… humans now, at this time."

                "This stinks," Iain says softly.

                "Then you're welcome to back out. You came for the music, remember, and until you change your mind Iain, get out of my office and wait downstairs for my signal."

                He disappears into the thickest of the curtains, his departure executed with a swift swishing of fabric. For a moment, I feel as if my guitar had been plunged through my throat, and its broken strings coiled around my heart. As Vanessa turns, I see read her eyes – and see nothing but disillusion there. She lets Iain pass, who stands, stiff and silent, until he abruptly stirs, as if suddenly realising the alien had just gone. 

I cannot bear look Iain in the eye. He touches my hand, the one still grasping my guitar. It feels diminished and faint. Disappointed and dejected, we file down the stairs as the next group rumbles up to perform.

                "Humans," one of them recoils.

Like a sore thumb on the bare grass, a crumble of wood stands. Thick, frayed leather drapes down on each side, and rods of metal slice narrow cubicles from the space it occupies. A waterlogged puddle blocks the entrance. I ask for a place to change into performing gear. A sound technician, eyes glazed from strain, points to the shack.

                Inside the leather has been creased into folds, soiled with mud and dangling in tatters. I suppose it will do no good to complain. Once I ensure I am free from prying eyes, I tape the leather drapes to the velcro patches. It falls out, revealing a hole big enough to poke my guitar through. I shake my head in disgust.

                Apart from good music, I believe in giving our audience something to look at. I change into a black top, with no sleeves; Iain says it brings out the flex in my arms when I play. I do not like belts like Michelle does. Instead, I put on the khaki bermudas I wore on the first day, sling them down a little so they go way below my kneecaps. 

                Pity there isn't any mirror. Aunt Cheng taught me to do my hair, so it stands out in spiked bangs. The stash for my hair unnecessary, I hang it on my neck loosely. 

                Outside, Vanessa and Iain are waiting. Iain's hair is done up in spikes too. He's sacrificed his jacket for his shirtsleeves. Apart from that he looks as normal as ever. There is a wicked grin across his face as he talks animatedly to Vanessa. I will ask him later.

                Vanessa has her hair drawn into a ponytail, so you can see the sparkle on her eyebrow stud each time she moves. Her baggy pants are held up by a bright orange stash, while her acid green shirt strains my eyes when she moves out of the shadow and into the light. It will be hard for anyone not to notice her behind the drums.

                "What's all the excitement?" I ask, joining them in a huddle.

                "This," Iain beams, then presents to me a couple of cells with a flourish. My mind tries to piece the two and two together. I catch a glimpse of the amps a distance away, and then turn back to the cells. I can't help but grin. "You're not going to…" I eye Iain steely.

                "Oh yes, I am," he says, the curve of his mouth ever present. "They say they'll cut us off after thirty minutes but I think, for going free, we should have more time on stage, don't you think?"

                "So you're going to smuggle the cells inside the amps, and then use them when they cut the power?" I question.

                "Wait till you see their faces," Vanessa says.                

                "By right the cells should kick in when there's no power," Iain looks at us, and fills the empty brackets in the amp with cells. "It'll give us, say, an extra twenty minutes."

                I turn away from Iain for a moment,  revising the entire list of practised songs. "Do you know the chords for all of them, or do you want me to go through them with you?" Iain asks again. He holds out a handful of guitar picks to me. I turn both his offers down.

                I run a finger through my hair. "You make sure you know yours."

                I feel my heart pulsing through every bit of my body. Something has lurched in my stomach. It has to be anxiety – or excitement. The crowd echoes from the other side of the stage. Vanessa is twisting her drumsticks. Iain, sure enough, going through the chords all over again hurriedly, barely able to contain himself. I tune my guitar to shed the tension building up inside.

                Another roar from the crowd – music tangles out from the back of the stage, garbled and noisy- a hit of the keyboards, looks like the band's doing a finale – I hear a shift in tempo –and, finally, the music stops… rested, and there is a sound bordering on sub-satisfied silence. A sound technician cuts the sound, and another one summons us towards the stage. 

                Clutching my guitar, we move forward, grim with apprehension and eagerness.

                "You know the drill, don't you?" the sound technician asks us, his eyes sullen but still. "We'll give you the signal so you can finish your performance. Good… luck."

                The group that has wrapped up their performance talks animatedly, gesturing; they are proud of their show. We pass them, as if we were never there. At the top of the stairs, we hear the impatience of the crowd on the other side of the curtains. The three of us stop and ponder for a moment; I am aware of the alien whom we talked to earlier watching us.  

                "This is it," Iain begins, his tone sound and serious, "the peak of everything we worked for. This is where we show our music to the world."

                "And I just hope we and our music will survive this," I mumble 

                "Well, Iris, there's no turning back now," Iain says. "You ready?

                I press Iain's wrist, and feel his warmth through it. Vanessa, drum sticks in one hand, takes Iain's other hand. 

                "Good."

                Iain brings the bass guitar down from his shoulder and, carrying it by its long neck, sweeps aside the folds of curtains. He sunlit outside blasts him with light momentarily, before the folds return to their fixed positions, engulfing his striding figure. I part the curtains again, and walk out onto the stage as a sea of colours begin to stir. My guitar firm in hand, I feel for a moment as if I were frozen in time. The thousands of faces, looking up, shred through my eyes, stilling time as my walk, though simply only five seconds, takes more than I desire for to complete.

                Two mikes await us at the centre of the stage. Getting my amp from Vanessa, I notice the sound technician's wire, and I plug it into the amp. A surplus power light flicks red; the cells, hidden, will do their work once this light fades. As I adjust the amp's power, I am aware of the hush that has overcome the crowd. I can feel eyes, hot like lasers, on my hair, my hands, my bare arms. 

                They now know we are humans. Some aliens grunt, others wait in silence. Iain And I tune quietly, as we let our audience get over the initial shock of seeing humans on this stage. Vanessa continues to set up the drums, rearranging them endlessly in her mess of bass, snares and cymbals. Iain has completed tuning; he taps the mike, and it echoes through the field.

                "Humans!" someone shouts from the crowd.

                "Be wary of their devices." I hear whispers. "They are malicious and will do anything to innocents like us." I frown. "Careful, their music is a spell of hate on anyone who hears it."

                Iain takes to the mike. His bass guitar is now slung across his neck on a strap, hanging precariously like a loose tooth. He addresses the crowd silently, but with that glint in his eyes: "Be prepared to lose yourself."

                Vanessa nods. I flick the switch on the amp, and immediately it gives its eager drone of static feedback. Iain, shifting his head to Vanessa, nods in return. Taking his downbeat, Vanessa responds with a smash of her snare drums and a beat of bass. 

                I cradle the guitar to my side; fingers flailing, they dance across the metal string. And the amp replies; creaky at first, and the noise melts into music. 

                The music, unrestrained and moody, slams into the crowd. They recoil, many utter noises disapprovingly at the raw strength of the intro. Others, those more attentive, scowl as Iain's bass runs aground on Vanessa's offbeat tune. Our notes, still green and shaky, emerge as a tangle of sounds incoherent. Ragged as it may be, Iain's body jerks into beat as I end the spluttering intro. The song begins proper; his voice bursts into song.

                Iain's voice stays constant as our chords struggle to merge for our first song, 'Are You Ready.' Vanessa, trying to bind both sounds, fails. Yet as we roar into the chorus, my fingers descend sharply, my other hand steadying the chords, I throw myself back recklessly. My strumming, inconsistent, is replaced by a groaning, sullen cry as my fingers plod the field of strings. The audience, slowly leaning into the music, continues to stare. I see some people in the distance dancing. Suddenly, I feel I want to dance too. Iain, caught by the music, gives the audience his best grimace yet.

                The finale of 'Are You Ready' comes out clean and neat. Vanessa executes her tattoo of repeated, monstrous beats with ease, and Iain's voice continues to hang as I play, silently, new notes for a new song. As his last word trails and disappears into the noise of the crowd, my hands burst into speed, and Iain's bass picks them up, coolly, ceaselessly.

                I turn my attention from the crowd to my guitar for a minute. The verses of 'Never Die' (my favourite) are tricky and powerful. With each new chord, I press my fingers on the thin metal, feel steel throbbing with my blood. But I don't care. I get to introduce the chorus; without mercy, I run my fingers over the strings. The amps, forced into action, echo a moaning, shrieking, shattering note that hurls itself at our audience. Iain's voice comes in, his bass weaving in and out of my chords. 

                I lift my head for a moment. An entire section of our audience are standing on their feet, anticipating, raring, as our music continues. I close my eyes now; my fingers flying low between the strings. The music captures me – and I make Iain's bridge an unintended duet. 

                The music, like a spirit walking forth from the stage, utterly possesses. I only know the way it makes me feel, the way it grips my heart in a flow of concentrated desire. As the chorus for 'Beautiful' approaches, I lunge into a set of rasping chords. Feeling the pulse of the music rushing through my veins, I feel the entire thing hit me – Iain's bass and voice, Vanessa's drums, my howling guitar – a wave fuelled by emotion, hot and foamy, with sound mixing with poetry.

                The wailing of my guitar continues, as Vanessa plays the opening for 'Higher', trying not to disappoint. Collected from my hands, Iain's voice swims over the cries of the guitar, his words clinging on desperately like the air on my skin, before dissolving into the noise from the crowd. Again, the music possesses me; my hands, fed with a craving to dance, grind on my guitar. The 'Higher' chorus, neat and genuine, breaks over my fingers, taken at full emotion by Iain's vocals. Consumed by urge, I press close to the mike, and before I know it, I am taken higher… beyond all that I can imagine. 

                My fingers, uncontrolled, guide the song as Iain's sweaty voice speeds into my guitar solo with utter passion and strength. Poetry, for that second, ascends into the solo, crying, straining explode into the air. Bursting forth in a thousand invisible lines, infiltrating and successfully winning, both hearts and voices.

His voice continues to rage, mingling with mine, filling my ears with a cry comparable to a siren's. I cannot see now, my eyes have been blurred with tears; the frenzied screech of the chorus continues, strong and sure, refusing to be eclipsed by the noise that can only be the crowd's. My hands radiate, and the chorus goes higher still, resolute as depression, heartfelt as sacrifice, compelling me to fall on my knees. 

                My eyes pick out a hand signal; Iain wants the end chorus played again. His look is one of pure triumph. My eyes steal a stare at the crowd, transformed from a watching trio into a dancing swarm of supporters, arms interlocked, chanting every last word of the song. Here it comes again… I lean into the words, my voice now strong and secure. Our voices soaring, hands still on the guitar – just one last line now. And I submit to the song – forcefully it washes me away – with arms outstretched, on my knees – I let it…

… _to the place of golden streets…_

                For an entire moment I don't stir. The aftershock of my crying guitar strings continues to pierce my ears, along with earsplitting roars from the crowd. My guitar before me, the ghost of the song walks abroad and anoints us with its silence.

Everything in front of me is blackness – but someone is playing a guitar, soft and lonely, but I can hear it. Another eruption of noise from the crowd. My ragged breathing betrays life throbbing within me. The sound of a guitar continues, its notes hanging in the air. But who is playing it?

                My eyes open, the crowd attempting to lunge at me in their excitement. Then, with a jolt, I realise it: I'm the one that's playing.

                Someone else is shouting: a slimy, alien voice. I notice one of the sound technicians, demanding us to cut the music and return backstage. Iain and I exchange glances for a second. With a gesture of defiance, he cuts the technicians' wiring to his amps. Severing it, he returns to stare at the crowd, his face shining with sweat. I follow. 

                And turn to him for orders. The sound technicians look furious enough to drag us offstage. But Iain, a grin of pure malice in his face, nods – and I begin to play. I do not turn back to look at Vanessa, but I'm sure she's grinning too. I don't look back at the sound technicians either. Their abashed faces are second only to their curses; they know they cannot do anything against a crowd feeding on our emotion.

                All the while the crowd roars and hollers, never with such an intensity I have ever seen before. They seem to be one large being, alive and moving, with just a thousand faces. I focus my eyes on the mass of life, seeking Gail's face or that of any of her conspirators. My hand brushes over the strings; from the death of 'Higher', comes new music.

                Iain, too, is driven by something more than his voice. He steps up to the mike, his voice shaking and says in solemn, spirited tones: "This is for all my human friends in this universe."  

                Vanessa opens, and I pick up from where she left off, the intro to 'Freedom Fighter' stinging my ears. The crowd, overwhelmed, rejoices at our persistence. Yet in their excitement the words of the song go unnoticed. Their voices, provoked by music into a deafening echo of tones, urges our song on. After 'Higher' I feel that this song is about the victory we have been vying for – a triumph for ourselves over all the masters we have ever known, to all those we have been flogged by. 

                Maya… my head swims, and I picture a boy decorated with bruises, sobbing in one dark corner. I accidentally miss a chord though I make up for it in the chorus, twisting my chords gently with the voices of Iain's bass. My desire has not slackened; only now the lights of longing, hoping have been put through walls of fire to become defiance, persistence. 

A flame within me surges. I try and think of Maya again, but his image has been replaced by others – Tamar, Michelle, Liwei, Gail… and finally myself. Just like looking into a mirror, I am sobbing too. My hands tighten at the sight; I fight back distraction, and with all my remaining grit I join Iain at the chorus. 

                _"I'm just a freedom fighter/ no remorse…."_

For seven songs, we play to the crowd, their voices always thirsting for more. Our cells, however, had a different idea. Catching the flashing red light on the amp, Iain orders a shift in tempo with a downward slash of his hand. The sky, turning a blackened blue, fell into the hands of a warm Solbrecht evening, with a slight breeze blowing and clouds taking their positions in preparation for a possible overnight shower. All this, and the faint, piercing lights from afar were our only portents to celebrate our finale.

Plucking the final lines of the closing song, my last chord coincides with the cells' final lapse of strength. With an ending tattoo from Vanessa, the sound cuts – for real – and the music is laid to rest.

                The voices of the crowd, in a mixture of appreciative disappointment at our untimely end, swash us with cheers and applause. The entire stage left pitched-black, I rue not having the opportunity to take the crowd for their support and unruliness. With the repeated chants of "encore" urging us not to leave, we escape in the darkness and slip through the curtains backstage.               

                Our arrival is one of silence. Sound engineers line the stairway, as if to politely show us out. Iain's alien friend, present in the darkness, which begins where the curtains end, watches over us like an observer beholding an execution. Everyone, sound engineers and other performers included, gaze at us with nothing short of controlled fury and quiet admiration. I swear at least one of the performers would have been captured by the music.  

                Nonetheless, they lead us down to the patch behind the stage. Their eyes stare, then turn away once we pass; the stunned, unnatural silence continues even as we pack our instruments as if uttering a word would bring a curse against such magical music. We accept the cold dispositions, but the excitement, the thrill, the sheer joy at our success… burns even more brightly within me.

                Now our music has gained us a thousand followers and tenfold the number of listeners.  

                Iain, trying desperately hard to keep his flippant mood inside the curve at his mouth, calls out to his alien friend, "So I suppose you're still not going to pay us despite all the noise the crowd's made?" 

                I cannot see his dipping glare but I am certain of its malevolence. Has Iain gone too far? The sound engineers appear to be ready to round in on us, while the other performers simply watch in impatience.

                To our surprise, he flips a debit plate down from his ledge; it lands on the ground, and embeds itself in the dry earth. It glows a distinctive blood red, and from my knowledge of Solbrecht currency I know the amount it contains. 

                Five hundred credits!

                Iain sweeps it up and drops it into my guitar case. "We thank you for your generosity," he says in a tone filled with sarcasm or genuine thanks or both.

                "Now let me not see any of your breed again!" he orders, his voice full of spite, from above. We are only too welcome to leave though.

                Our instruments in hand, we saunter along the edge of the crowd, rowdy with impatience and darkness. In their restless distraction, they hardly recognise either of us – even with Iain's bass guitar too long to be concealed – and I hope it stays that way. I cannot bear being smothered by the crush of a million alien bodies anyway. 

                Under the cover of the night, and the bad music which follows, we take our leave.

                Once we reach the crest of the field leading to the road, we encounter our first admirer. A shadow obstructs our way, standing in the extended penumbra of a bruised streetlamp. The sky above still shows evidence of lingering light, though faint, glowing deep beneath the cast of clouds; combined, both the streetlamp and clouds give the scarce light a purplish hue, the shadow a wash of lighter lilac. I approach, the shadow stirs; the light bounces off something, and I catch a streak of ginger…

                "You could've started a revolution."

                I straighten myself as I reach the parapet and turn to face Gail, one leg on her skateboard. She is alone.

                "Where're your friends?" I question.

                "Gone to light the fires at all human homes tonight," she tells me, her face trying to hide a glimmer of admiration. "Tell them you beat the aliens flat."

                 "We do not deserve such flattery," I say, trying to hide the modesty inherited from Father. But still, I have yet to stomach the reason. "Though I'm inclined to think it was magic the way the crowd took to it."               

                "It is kind of captivating, standing in the crowd. Gives you a feeling short of pure bliss, yet at the same time makes you think you've lost a heart, physically… no human has ever played that well before."     

                 "It's poetry, sometimes it just turns into music."          

                "But everyone loves it," Gail says, turning to the parapet for a second as Iain vaults onto it, then helps Vanessa up. "You should've seen the view from the crowd."         

                Iain stares, taken in by the sight. Gail eyes him too, until Iain finally asks Gail, "Who're you?"

                "An acquaintance," Gail nods slightly, in her humbled superiority, "Gail, as Iris knows. You play bass well." 

Gail turns, this time taking my right hand in hers. "So it seems we do have much in common, after all. You're only human anyway."

                She lets the skateboard slip, and I catch it with my right foot.

                "Payment for the show, and for the bet," she grins. "Might I add you were deserving of this win – this time."

                "If there might be another time, Gail," I say. I scour for a pick in one of the pockets of my guitar case and uncover a bronzed, stiff one. I pass it to her. "Something for you too, taken it as a small token, for your appreciation."    

                Pocketing it, she takes a few steps back before facing us again.

                "Watch yourselves, because heroes come and heroes go, you said so yourselves," Gail says, one hand to her heart. She does a theatrical bow and then disappears, just like that, into the waning light. 

Written by shelter 


	9. Rain Shadow

**8. Rain Shadow**

**Note:**_ Took a long time to finish this chapter. Apart from the tougher, more packed college timetable, there have been a few unplanned obstacles, such as my interests in short stories, a serious lack of ideas and personal problems which have crippled my time here and there. If the chapter looks rushed and slipshod, you have my apologies; the change in writing style halfway through tells the time when I stopped writing, and then returned with something which I thought has only been unique to my poetry. The plot, wears thin sometimes, but as long as I start the next chapter, I should be aiming for nothing less than completion.   
I find it hard to be in any way attached to this story, but sometimes I wish I could, so I could do a better job. I used to drift through all the diction I used last year when I was writing 'Junkie', but now it's become a sort of struggle to keep both mood and plot running strong. I'll be conscientiously doing the story – and finishing up all my weekly tutorials as well. Don't expect much after March 22 though: that's the day I'm getting my final posting. And if I do stay in ACJC, then the workload is set to increase tenfold. But, as someone has pointed out, somehow I just manage to get things done._

The fair, wasting away its hours by the days, soon ebbs into a cycle of rituals. At the beginning of each day I endure the rigid schedule of a moneychanger, checking the accounts of all ledgers and journals, and setting income and expenditure records to the basis, before setting out for the next day's business, balanced by a leather pouch of our earnings that Father forbids me to abandon. At the day's end, I ensure my writings and untidy scrawls can later be figured in the total calculation, to which Father still entrusts only to himself. I begin the day with scrutiny of my work, and end it the same way. Everything else in between is a flash of alien faces, and a memory for safekeeping. 

                I count the days since our performance; one becomes two, and three turns into seven. The music festival concludes after eleven days, and everywhere I see alien musicians playing hopefully on the streets instead. Their presence, like the hundreds of street-sellers, is balanced by a fixed level of tolerance by the thronging crowd, whose numbers have yet to falter three weeks' on. Father treats them with an attitude halfway between ignorance and pity. 

                Yet on the day when my count extends to eighteen, I can still hear my guitar in the morning, crooked against my chest, sweaty in my arms. The music, though long buried with the night, I have dreams of resurrecting soon enough. Like a phantom, it manifests itself all around me: Iain humming a tune, Mr. Niel's browsing through human music at a store and the constant temptation to play my guitar when I am not entertaining customers.

                During the lengthened afternoon, two things of remote significance come to pass. First, Father and Mr. Niel consensually agree that our work at the fair is over. The pledges sold, and running on two weeks' worth of moneychanging, Father announces to the others the profit I have earlier ascertained. The fair will go on, of course, until trading dwindles to a pale shadow of our first day; yet, even we must agree when enough is satisfactory. Father shows approval at our profits. I am still running on the glow of the concert.   

                On that same afternoon, a raw west wind enters the dusty alleys to our Zechaat quarter. With burnt-out ends of lights remaining and the crisp creak of dead leaves filling the less-crowded roads, the wind forces traders to seek shelter in the dry, cracked pavements underneath buildings. The crowd decreases to scattered groups of buyers; the gutsy, hardened wind is followed by a blast of sunshine all afternoon, leaving everything in a shade of monochrome. 

                At dusk, the sun is driven out by thick, dark clouds, not checked in size by the nagging wind blowing below. Within an hour, as I begin to close the accounts for the day, lightning scatters all bystanders. The wind diminishes, while dented streetlamps fail to pierce the murk of the evening, marked with an overcast sky. I stare at my human neighbour in the adjacent stall, busy filling his tins with currency.

                "Ill weather tonight?" I ask.

                "No, just the rain."

                At the end of my shift, when the only crowd which remains loiters in the trading hall, the rain begins the night. It starts with a soft whispering; acrid drops of wet liquid falling onto the panes outside. Then it reverses into a rhythm, allowed by the presence of slight wind. Finally, it breaks, and paints everything in Zechaat a tainted, blackened hue. As I step out into the open porch of the hall that same evening, a curtain of rain obscures everything, and with encroaching attempts, seeks to drown me in its bitter foam. 

The following day dawns cold and heavy, with the stained drops of the night's thunderstorm. Throngs coming to the fair have become no more than stringy groups of customers; the magic of the fair has been worn away, washed out by the rain, which continues in a persistent drizzle. Iain and Vanessa have gone to aid, Mr. Niel in loading his purchases and our musical instruments into the craft, leaving me alone at the stall.  

                Several of the traders have left; there is nothing left in Zechaat but rain now. I scribble aimlessly on an empty page of the ledger, the last entry two days ago. All the unoccupied traders are listening, watching, a musician's movements outside the adjacent glass panel. I can hear his tune, playing softly like a worthy remembrance on a wind instrument. He is wet with rain and sweat, though his audience is but those he cannot see behind the panel he slouches on. 

                Father is absent, so I listen. My human counterparts in the nearby stalls also watch him, and his charming antics, the fingers of his four hands trembling as they progress up and down his flute. I cannot make out the melody clearly, since the soft patter of the rain interrupts it. My own thoughts manage to overcome me though, for the next image I see is that of my human neighbour calling my name.

                "Iris!" 

                I turn to the direction of the musician. He has already left, but the rain continues. My human neighbour nods his head in the direction of the mirrored blackness outside, where I notice, in a distance, the gathering of a mass of bodies, in the rain. A vague, gruff voice is yelling; amidst the ebbs of an echo silenced by the paneled glass, a vein of lightning shards his muted words.

                "What's going on?" I ask.

                "Something definitely," he replies. My eyes fall on a bludgeon in his hand.

                The trade hall is quiet, apart from the idle drip, drip of a leak somewhere and the rabble silently proceeding outside. My neighbour seizes my right hand quickly; his face almost pale and says in a terrible façade of unconcern, "I'm going out. Are you coming or staying?"

                "What's with you?" I say, wrenching my wrist out of his grip. "I'll come, and I can take care of myself, thank you."     

                "If you wish," he releases his grasp but the concealed unease in his voice is plastered all over his face.

I dare not remove my eyes from the growing black mass congregating outside. I stare, through the wide glass panels, until my gaze gets strained by the blurry, frosted images. Before we exit the hall, he drapes a windbreaker over me; I return him a stare. He doesn't look back. The cold touches me now, sharp and piercing on my cheeks; I pull the windbreaker to my neck, then put don the hood. I do not want to be recognised in this foul air.

                The voice is clearer outside, unable to be suppressed by the heavy rain. The grey sky's shadows, put into focus by the shaky air on the streets, splash down the sides of the hall and over us. We approach the crowd with caution, water running through our paces and deadening our every move.                

                The mist hinders my vision of the crowd as I advance. Someone, an alien most likely, is standing in the thick of the gathering, raised, his voice towering over everyone else. My neighbour, ignoring streams of water carve valleys down his face, advances slightly; I follow, until we are almost touching the backs of the crowd.             

                The alien speaks, with a distinct Zechaat accent, and I tremble beneath his sinister strength.

                "Yes, my brethren, they have returned! There is no question about it, they have come to seek out the remnants and to completely destroy them! And in the wake of their shadow lies Solbrecht, the centre of commerce, their conquest to seek, to loot, to destroy… incomplete lest they touch us!"

                I know what he is screaming about. The crowd mutters slightly, moving as one, single body. Many grunt, growl in low undertones and roar – in silence. I clutch the lapel of my windbreaker in a vice grip; a heavy, thick feeling saturates the damp air around me, tearing against my exposed face with burning claws. A feeling which I have not felt since the day… the ambush in the alleyways of Zyjushem.

                The pervading air falls on my shoulders, a burden, heavy with deadly foreboding.

                "The Drej overrun! And there is no escape. They've thrashed D'Armaran fleets and Rutani fighters in their rage! I have seen it, with my own eyes; eyes granted permission to see another portent, to give the sight of my fear, my horror, to you, inhabitants of Zechaat. I have seen the blast of swift silence, tear apart metal and hull! I have seen the blue lightning rip people from their legs and dismember them from their blood!"

                The crowd moans, afraid and jilted.                  

                "Piteous spectacle!" one cries out.

                "What shall we do?"

                The alien pauses, but I see the rage pulsing through his limbs. "I came back, not to memorize another Earth, but to warn you of those _of _Earth…" 

                My blood freezes, and the cold of the rain stabs, drop by drop, into my heart.

                "… Are they worth our friendship, these dregs of the ground, these _humans_? We are a common people here in Zechaat, but how much are we willing to pay for their presence in our midst? What are they, what offal… are they our friends, or do we consider them a tattoo, a black mark upon our heads and our future? One that the Drej can see?" 

                Lightning bursts through the shadowed sky. The light cleaves onto the ground and ripples past the speakers face: I catch a glimpse of his impervious mien. 

"Humans!" someone bellows.

                "Curses!"

                I want to run, but my feet are in the rain, unable to move, clinging to the ground with dread and alarm. Sweat replaces the rain in on my hands, as waves of rage shock through the crowd, ablaze with fury.         

                "I do not know your principles, my friends," the alien says, muting his voice to a hissing murmur, "but I do know the Drej's. I fear them as much as you do, but some, with their mystic designs, provoke them to terrible anger. And the Drej's anger is extinction, a blast of energy, into a void of emptiness…"   

                "Are you saying that humans…?"questions a voice from the other end of the crowd.

                "No, my brother," he reproaches the interruption, "they are not our enemies. They are our fellow inhabitants, with as much right to the seed of Solbrecht as all of us," the disturbance of noises intensifies, "but, remember, they are the _Drej's _enemies. And they exist to oppose them." 

                "So get rid of them!" another calls, the malice in his voice carries over to me easily.

                "Let me not stir you to a riot," the alien reproves the violence welling within the crowd again, and it responds, uneasy and brittle with provoked fury. "Who are we to think that we deserve being spared the Drej's torment, when we have invited humans to the fairs and bought their trade? Who are we to think that we are not the guilty ones? We, who have tolerated them for all these years, embraced them as brothers. The humans are not our enemies. We are! For being their friends!"  

                I back away; the words of silent anger breathe in, and possess the crowd, occupying them in their unknowing helplessness. I summon the courage, to pull myself free from the unseen grip of the crowd, but the alien's speech reaches its climax… 

                "And WE are our own enemies! And WE are the ones who will pay the price, the ultimate warrant, for being the friend of a human! If I were part of the Drej race, I would DIG out every human from among you and KILL every human in your midst until the RAIN ran with their coloured BLOOD…"

                The wrath boiling within explodes, and converts the listening crowd into a mob. I catch only a glance, as masses of bodies swarm at me, rushing me over… and then aside by their thrust. The mob tosses me out of their path, and I fall, my hands failing to catch me, instead crumpling from the fall. The rain, and then the mob overlaps my fallen figure. Blind with anger, the strength of a thousand feet press on my outstretched left foot, attempting to concentrate itself at a point to the extreme left of my vision. When the pain subsides, I withdraw my foot, swollen with numbness. Writhing in my own misery, I don't realise my friend is missing.

                Aflame in ferocity, the mob crashes into the hall, wrecking windows, spilling over onto the nearby streets, attacking anything human and leaving rubble and red in its wake.

                _"Human! There's a human!"_ they yell, and smother him with their numbers, "_their stalls… look! Their stalls… and another there! You! Over there! That's a human stall too! Get him! There's another… and get the human before he hides!_"

                The gruesome noises replay themselves in my mind. I try to stand, but the throbbing, sharp pain pulls me back down. The windbreaker saved me; they couldn't see my face. And now I feel the rain, generous drops splattering over my hair, wet to the centre, flung down from my face as I struggle even to breathe.  

                My eyes fall upon a bludgeon, snapped into two, awash in a shade of light crimson. 

                I do not turn my eyes over to the source of the crimson; the rain, indifferent, pours ceaselessly, and drains the foul deeds in pools and running streams. I stagger, my weight throwing my wounded foot off balance. The shrieking of the mob (or is it someone else's?) persists, in the streets – and somewhere deep inside my mind. 

                I feel like I have awakened from a deep sleep. My eyes, bear the brunt of the shaded glaze of grey the rain and the mob brings. Someone shouts, from somewhere ahead. Reeling, I cannot tear my eyes off the ruin at every corner of the once composed streets of Zechaat. The hall's glassy sides are irregular shreds of torn glass; a preoccupied fire guts the entrance, where a limp stretch of flesh hangs loosely from the wall. Stalls have been overturned, their contents trailing off in the rain, and poles contorted by hatred into snares of iron.  

                I lurch in disgust, sickness at the sight of a piece of human in the puddles.

                In the midst of the sea of rain, I fall, the burden on my back breaking my shoulders. Fat, wet drops of rain dash against my face. The lurching, sickness takes me in seconds, rolling over my throat in waves. Bending over at the edge of a clear puddle, I notice myself, complete to every last detail, and then it shatters, as the nauseating pulse comes spluttering, choking from my froth-corrupted throat…

                I look in the puddle again. This time I see the damage behind me: a flaking flame and a ripped shred of a stall awning. Again I see myself – the foamy bile I have thrown forth now obscures it, my face being dragged into dilution… I am trying not to cry, but I cannot help the dulled sobs… my arms flex, and I feel my a part of my face touching the cool water, the other receiving the battering, ceaseless rain…   

                The darkness curls me like my own shadow. With a blind wave it exposes the sand at the bed of a glassy sea; then with one final wave, it undercuts everything.

Someone hammers away the darkness. 

                Tearing black from my eyes, I glance upon vision, a brief momentary sight spread out over me. 

                The rain has ended. The puddles crater the street like the surface of a dimpled face; across all I can see is ruin. But there are no flames. The soak of the former rain persists. Clouded, I make out people, sauntering amongst the debris. One seems to be getting larger, a smudge in my vision, inflating.  

                It draws near, and I can recognise its sweet, feminine breath.

 Someone hammers away the darkness.

                In its place, patches of fine, absolute white light stream into view. First they confine it to the holes of my eyes which are the windows to the world; then, the hammering resumes, breaking away the crust of rigid black like flakes off a crisp piece of meat. I gaze upward, coming to realise I am not stranded in the middle of the road anymore. Instead, there is a room, with light. Stuffy but I feel comfortable enough to think I'm back in my bedroom, at home, in Zyjushem. 

                All that feels as if it has already taken place, a long time ago – to somebody else.

                Trying to sit up, I draw a shaky, ragged breath. As the black encrusting my eyes falls away in strips, I see Vanessa and Iain first; then my vision sharpens, and I notice Father and Mr. Niel, in the backdrop of smudged walls and broken furniture. My eyes opening fully, Iain rises to his feet, and with a watery, incoherent sound speaks. My ears dull it, but my mind regains its strength and before he even reaches my bedside, I throw myself into his arms.

                "Iris," he breathes, soft and warm against my cheek, like nothing I have never felt before! "Iris. When Vanessa saw you in that puddle soaked in blood we thought…"

                I stare at him. "But I wasn't bleeding," I say.

                He takes hold of my right hand, and directs it to my tight, larger than usual through my slacks. Now only, do I notice the plaster around it, caking the wound which had been crushed during my brief encounter with the mob. 

                "They said the bone had pierced the skin," Iain says, gazing at me. "But it's good to have you back, Iris."

                But Iain parts from me. Father, his face sullen and loose, confronts me. He takes my face in his hands; like a child, from a vague memory, I remember the touch, warm and secure, flowing through his rough hands onto my face. My eyes are humble; I have never looked Father in the eye often. Yet with a finger he brushes a stray lock from my fringe. 

                "Oh Iris, how I wish I could've taken your place for all the things you would have seen," he speaks, heavily hung in regret, a tone I hate to hear. When he speaks like this, he is almost defeated. "How I wish…"       

                "It's too late to wish, Father," I tell him, one of my fists clenched. "Now am I just thankful that I am alive."

Iain says the streets of Zechaat, for that one-hour, had turned into a hell. 

                "I was at the docks when everything broke out," he recalls, "where we barricaded ourselves in. We had heard of the killing, so many, even the other races, were afraid to venture out of the centre. So your Father and I just waited it out, until the officers came and told us to get back because there was going to be a curfew." 

                "How about Vanessa?" I ask, my voice woozy with tiredness.

                "One of D'Armaran traders hid her, just as the mob sacked the centre. But she said she heard the shrieking and the horrible sounds. The same trader led us to this haven, where he told the keeper he'd pay for all our lodgings. But your Father insisted otherwise, and replenished him for all his trouble. But we were worried sick about you. Once they lifted the curfew, we went searching."

                Feeling weary with fatigue and shock at everything, I can only stare at the ceiling of my little room as Iain leaves. Father says we will be leaving in the morning, because the authorities cannot guarantee our safety anymore. The fair, has been cut short brutally, and everything else left in shambles.

                At the unusual sense of insecurity permeating everything, I can only feel with a mind slightly numb from the foul air. Sometimes I get that nauseous ache again; fresh from my thoughts, I wonder if all those faces I recollect setting my eyes upon during the performance have escaped unscathed. _Talk about guitars, _some creaky musical score continues to echo in my head. 

                Is it one of the songs I have played? I cannot tell: something clouds it. So I decide to mutter them aloud.

                "There's a peace inside us all," I say. 

                Through the dimming light of the long night outside, I rest from the world.

Written by shelter 


	10. Stone Throwers

**9. Stone Throwers**

**A/N**_: Seven months ago I began this chapter, and seven months later I've managed to struggle through it in spite of emotional turmoil, a newfound recklessness, an overwhelming preference for poetry over prose and (this being the usual excuse) a ridiculously tight junior college schedule. If anyone notices the feel of the plot or the characterizations being rather dislocated and shaky, that's me to blame, since my old style of writing has given way to something slightly less secure but much more descriptive and metaphorical. I'm trying to revive the music; I think they're what gives the story its edge. _

_                I'm attempting to steer clear of the despair environment that I've done much in the last few chapters and shift into something else (I don't know what). Whether the environment and story have been adept at translating futility and misery is up to you to decide. I'll be ending off soon; I don't want this too long. But it's going to take some more time though._

"Are you alright?" 

                "I wish you would stop asking me that."

                The rest of the journey we undertake in silence. From the point I meet Iain and Vanessa at the dining area of the haven, up until the deathly peaks of Zechaat skyscrapers shadow themselves with distance from the back of our craft, no single word is exchanged. An understanding, deeper than the loss of fellow human lives we will never know, is the only thing we share on our endless path home. 

                Even the measly breakfast the haven provided – of crust and a bitter honey flavouring – we consumed without conversation. I had made attempts to lighten the mood with something to say, but somehow I am always interrupted – or silenced. Iain and Vanessa had met my eye later, during our final inspection of our cargo we were to bring back to Zyjushem. Clearing room for the three of us amongst the boxes upon boxes of purchased items, I remember realising my guitar had been stowed away in the cargo hold of our craft. I had completely forgotten it; now looking at it again seemed as if I had been reunited with a long lost friend. 

                There had been scavengers on the street as we exited Zechaat. 

                Our departure was almost ghostly. Mr. Niel, hesitant of remnants of yesterday's mob, steered clear of the main roads. His reason was that of safety more than anything else; although I suspect there was something else he could not commit himself to see. But we saw it anyway. Down by the crowded boulevard, along the street where we were so earnestly welcomed by traders on our first day. With his arms across him and face hidden by the flailing blue and white awning from some unknown stall, we picked out a man lying on his side. Only his torso appeared visible, I recall, the rest of him erased by the ground by which we was sprawled upon. I remember gazing upon this scene without sentiment, without any stirring of thought from deep inside of me. I watched from the window as passing pedestrians overlooked it, their eyes not noticing – or unable to notice – the dead man's dump.

                Like the way everyone had overlooked Earth fifteen years ago.

                I find my place in the cargo hold directly above the steady whirring of the inner engine of the craft, adjacent to the only window in the compartment. Vanessa has her eyes cut short of opening, and thinned into closing. Iain is gazing out of the window from his place at the door. 

                We see nothing but wide, greyed landscapes, drowned by the recent onslaught of rainy weather. Smudgy, hunched shadows accompany us in our return; the generous, tarried highways of the Zechaat vicinity soon dwindle into lone, quiet mudtracks, which turn into asphalt again as a town approaches. A limitless horizon of muddy plain and sombre sunlight borders the stretch of road back to Zyjushem, like a single vein into, and out of, the Solbrecht interior.  

                The hours ebb into mornings and evenings. Mr. Niel avoids the inns now; he has spoken to Father, voicing his fears and whispering without pause. I can tell. The violence has extended even to the drab countryside. The stripped forests that we saw on the road to Zechaat are smoldering totems of ash. Mud and dirt have splashed onto the road at certain intersections. The rain has cleaned almost everything, but my eyes are constantly kept awake by the puddles, everywhere. Huge pools, open against the monochrome sky, dot the mud and grime and silence.  

                But the surest evidence of the attacks comes when we are forced to stop at an inn.

                Mr. Niel knows an human-owned inn several miles off our usual route. Toward dusk on our second day, we take another detour; skidding along the paved road in the near enclosing dark, we reach the inn. And we I shudder at the derelict building.

                Several other crafts are parked there too. But some have shattered windows; others show symptoms of battle. The inn itself, like most of the lodges in the interior, is a solitary, squat dwelling. A skeletal vine runs up its side, as if to claw the entire inn as it extends across the roof. A chimney breathes frail gasps of smoke; the walls are soiled with mud and several windows are cracked down the middle. But I keep silent. A roof over my head is enough for me not to complain. 

                "Keep your eyes open," Father warns.

                I catch sight of another pool by the wayside. It has taken over the rest of the road, which trails away into the night. I cannot help but focus on the puddle, darkened into a frightening depth and seemingly still in the dying light of a cold sun. Iain motions me on my shoulder, urgently. I tear my eyes away from it, but not quickly enough. There is a black smear against the night, floating along the banks of the pool. The more I look, the more blotches my mind pictures.

                "Iris," Vanessa turns me towards her. She takes my shoulders, and her face blurs as she speaks: "Don't look… just don't look." 

                I nod my head drowsily, as we hurry to join the rest. They are already at the door; in the trench beside it, are soil-stained flowers, scraggly and bone-thin. As Father enters the heavy-set door, we are taken into a dark landing, stuffy from days lacking exposure. Amidst the thick gloom, I can piece together ragged tips of furniture and the rooms beyond.

                The air is welcoming, though, with the warmth of a fire.               

                There are guests, all human; they crowd the fire in the lounge. The inn, I know later, belongs to a mother and son, to whom the battered building is their only home and artery. They are a quiet, introverted pair, whose room is lit by a spilling candle at the end of the passage. As we gather in the lounge, we learn there are no rooms left. We bargain as they serve us, almost wary, almost too accustomed to the darkness to advance towards us near the warm fireplace.

                "I'm sorry, sirs," she addresses Father and Mr. Niel. She is willowy, with shreds of youth still in her eyes, her voice, but she obscures her face with a sort of veil, "the only places left are the reclining chairs in the lounge."

                Mr. Niel casts a glance at Father. "That will do nicely, Ma'am," Father acknowledges. 

                She excludes herself from the fireside conversation, as her son gently places extra blankets, worn-thin by years of overuse, on the bare floor. He passes one to Vanessa. I dare not mutter a word, let alone an offering of thanks, for fear of the spectacle we caused with Maya at the other inn. Maya. I try to blot him out of my mind as Father speaks with the other guests – on business, on politics, on the bloodshed.

                Unavoidably, they speak of the Drej.

                I watch, from my bed behind an unnoticed coffee table, where a bowl of dried fruits basks in between the air of chatting. The fire burning constrained in the fireplace rasps with the breath of smoke, as the flames continuously rise and fall, licking the walls' ashen sides with each flicker. Now and then, a hiss of embers sets the lounge into a blood red illumination. I turn my face from the fire's movement, attempting to sleep as the words of conversation linger.

                "Has the madness spread deeper into the interior?" Mr. Niel questions them.

                The man he talks to lights a _kerbala_, and in addition to the ashen aroma from the glowing fireplace, the air becomes saturated with the fumes of raw, Solbrecht tobacco. His face, parts the guttering smoke like a draft blowing from an open window. The other guest, perches himself in the fraying armchair behind me; I have yet to get a full glimpse of him, but with Iain curled up closely to my right, I have no reason for anxiety. 

                "There have been incidents, but the authorities in the capital have yet to acknowledge them. The damage after all that chaos in Zechaat will keep them preoccupied for a while," he says, his tone deathly monotonous. "I only know of one death so far."

                "How many humans, you say, died in Zechaat again?" Mr. Niel inquires. 

                "Reports say at least ninety: enough to make any human afraid…"

                A sudden movement by the other guest interrupts the conversation. He gestures, apparently wanting to speak; when he does, his voice is determined, but strained.

                "Watch out for the mobs, they are everywhere now," he tells as I try to feign sleep. "These people have been driven to fear, you must understand… and for a good reason too: the Drej have torn apart a drifter colony."

                Father immediately turns upon the man: "What? How can this be possible?"

                "It happened, ironically, as recent as the day the rampage began across this… dammed planet. Some details have been coming in – I worked with a broadcaster's until I decided to flee the city for my life, see – and just before I departed, the channels began filling in with accounts and descriptions of a drifter colony being attacked, by the Drej. They say it was New Marrakech, just at the outskirts of the system…"  

                "So the Drej are coming ever closer," Iain mutters to me. 

                "It could be the reason why the riots have intensified," Mr. Niel suggests.

                But Father, I notice, remains aghast. Although our distant family and relations, have never lived in New Marrakech, Father has constantly reminded me that our link to the millions in the colonies must remain intact; that out of the millions, we found a planet for ourselves – as refugees. Yet he has never forgotten the poverty of the drifters. Aunt Cheng, for instance, was from one of those colonies. 

                "You know what I think," says the man behind me, his voice slightly raised, "these are tough times, but as humans, we're going through something we've only gone through perhaps hundred of years ago in our history. It's different now: we're getting hated collectively. I'm inclined to think this may soon be an end for us, though. If they're after us, what else can we do but wait for them to come?"  

                The smoking man chucks his _kerbala_ into the fireplace; the hungry flames reduce it to embers in a few seconds. He gets to his feet, and stares almost madly around at everyone in the room.

                "I'm just sick of running, that's all," he speaks, exchanging his monotone for frustration. "I don't want to own this planet; shit, I don't even want all those human-haters to hang for their malice. But I'm _sick _of running. First from Earth, then from my town, and eventually from nowhere…"

                The last thing I see of the conversation is Father approaching the man, while the fire lurches, splutters and fades into a luminous shadow. 

                "Somehow or other, I suppose that's the only way we can go on living and not call ourselves hypocrites for forsaking what we are."

The innkeeper's echoing steps on the wood-boarded floor awake me the next morning. Unlike the urban morning in Zechaat, the air in the inn smells stale, instead of being smothered with exhaust and traffic's incessant moan. The morning seems more authentic, more like home than Zechaat. As the innkeeper does her rounds, she opens a boarded-up window, allowing fresh sunlight to satisfy the otherwise moody room. From outside, silence enters into silence, but I can see there will be some sun today. I remove the thinned blanket, catching the pure air of a hopefully normal morning.

                At a second glance, tick welts cover my exposed arms and legs.

                The morning air of this isolated inn basks placid in the responsibility of a blue sky. As we eat a modest breakfast, my stomach grumbles for a Mother-cooked meal; within the next few days we will finally reach Zyjushem. We take our leave, neither relieved nor sad to leave the lone inn. The other two guests prefer to linger a while longer; Father bids the woman and her quiet son farewell, and we leave them in the gravel lawn still dotted with puddles and morning sunshine.               

                Trying to recline with the thoughts tugging at my mind in the back of our craft, the journey enters attrition: a single vignette of an immobile painting flashes, inconsistently, at our faces. The interior retains its barren-ness, despite a sudden shower as we slowly climb into the environs of Zyjushem. 

                There are puddles everywhere, overwhelmed with mud.

                Even in the narrow street outside our home, the air is thick with silence – and a severe foreboding, of something unseen, of something to come. As we step, gingerly, out from our vehicle, the doors to our home fling open, revealing the faces of Mother, Aunt Cheng, Michelle and Liwei all pasted in that single rectangle bordered by doorframe. At the sight of our disembark, they rush out, embracing us with a muttering of words and shaky arms. 

                "Oh, I heard…I heard," Mother says again and again. 

                Father embraces her, planting a chaste kiss on her cheek. "That is all history. We are all right. No one was hurt. Iris was caught in the riots, but nothing serious has happened."  

                Mother's eyes move to the binding of bandages and dermpatch on my arm, and in an instant, she is upon me.

                "Iris, oh, Iris… are you alright? Does it hurt?" she says, as I catch sight of her tears. I cannot help but begin to cry too. There is a feeling, greater than the music, greater than the revulsion of being so close to seeing my own blood on my hands; for at last, until the next wave comes, we are safe together. 

The drab weather of a non-existent Solbrecht autumn stretches into months, with an obvious invisibility of sunshine and rain. In the small street at the foot of my window, running crazily into the dwellings in our community, I watch as the wind, seemingly the only natural force alive in the world, carves hollows in the dust that otherwise gathers ignorantly in our drains. My window tilts forward from our house into the street, like an overhang; Ershed and Tamar work consistently in the bakery at the far end of our street, their labours stream down the lane in a consistent, musky odour of butter mingled with wild flour and vegetable oil.

                Amid these moments, their etching scraped into my daily life as the shatter of a ruined guitar string, I pace my room, my walk still irregular from my wound. My injury has made me realise how much I dislike walking with a slight limp: as my limbs flex and muscles slacken to achieve a step, the joints unclench, and the abrasive grind of joints hardly helps in the recovery. I haven't been to school either. I heard that it had been sacked during the short period of riots that had gripped Zyjushem, its windows smashed and front façade torched. 

                I am unable to venture into the world that I once knew. It doesn't seem to exist anymore. Iain says it's dangerous to be out on the streets in the late afternoon and evening; since the riots, everything seems to have been absorbed into a outline of false calm, the veneer for an inside full of suppressed wrath and violence that has just begun to surface under the recent lawlessness. Iain reckons, until the weather gets better, no human should be outside alone.

                It does seem strange: from my window, the world looks similar, though I know it's changed.

I cease the thoughts of the world outside my window; allowing them instead to cradle my guitar effortlessly in my hands, and as I examine the chords for a new song, silently pluck out the notes for the music. With one hand half-closed over the fraps on the guitar's neck I loosen my fingers, strumming a disheveled, sour sound – the ghost of a song, unable to be exorcized without the push of the amp.   

                _Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if that performance that we did wasn't just for the money or the recognition. _My fingers lined with fleeting red scratches stream down the guitar neck to pull an incomplete note together. _Yet I have been given to this pensive mood lately: when I sung that song 'Freedom Fighter' meaning every word that was in those lyrics. Or did I? Perhaps it was a mindless grip of the moment.  _

                _Why this hasty onslaught of justifications?_

                Frustrated I allow my guitar to hang, unsteadily, hooked like the poor bind of a limp knot onto one of two of my now immobile fingers. Its weight forces it down, and it rams into my right knee, jarring my already weakened limb into a flinch of pain. _I did not need to endure that which I did endure, _I tell myself; its not comforting, but it keeps my mind away from the hideous proximity of possibilities that litter a curious mind such as this. 

                I brush a lock of my hair aside, seeing a silvery black stream entangle in within those same fingers that had once plucked on the guitar. I arrange the set of music notes and references on my bed; clutching my guitar once again, I narrow the wire from the amp, kneading its stretch and then fasten it to the back of my guitar. _Let's try something new, shall we?_

                Imagining myself again before a crowd of hundreds all awash with noise and expectancy and rowdy demand. I perfect the intro; the music, more vicious to the ears than even the old images of blood and wreck, resounds off the room's walls, before it slams back into my face, vengeful at having no escape. 

                The sound that embraces me in echo is raw and base, a shade of the magnificence from the performance, lacking in its overprotection. The music drives me to me feet; shaky, I struggle to stand, but the instability consolidates the music, and the song of human shackles intensifies into personal lament. I jar the guitar against my arm, fingers slippery over the metal strings I once had complete dominion over. My thumb caresses the backdrop of the music, its chorus steady and repetitive with strumming. The music continues, listless but not personified…

                And then, as if a second self from somewhere in me took hold of my senses, I snap into a half-dance, half-guitar playing stance. _I don't know where you come from _– I slash the strings with one complete arc of certainty and the edge of rasping, screaming, salient undertones shatters the restlessness of the former disquiet, and the song turns from personal lament into a dirge bordering on pathetic fallacy – _can you hear me? – _the bridge silences the throbbing fingers – _your fingers seem to be alive with lamentation, and your soul my hollow self – _at the exact moment, the hands shroud the music, gliding swiftly over the still shaking strings, sliding into its exact place – _you play so much like the person I want to be, what do you desire?_

_                To break free._

                The chorus stammers into the walls and then bursts at my feet, prostrate, its hands encompassing the room with the blasting throbs of rasping and snarling utterances. _Merge as one – _and the two selves complete their unity, the guitar alight in my arms, cradled and moaning the lamentations of a hundred generations of music before this day and having enough to mourn for another hundred. _I am at the climax, I am at the centre of it all. _The music's invisible mouths speak to me their chorus, their strangled stutters: _I want to heal - _                at the downdraft of my arm the music throws my head back into possession – _I want to feel _– and at its return I leap into a strenuous curl, my guitar uplifted, and arms flailed around it, dancing – _what I thought was never real -_

                I barely notice it, but in the screaming wails of the guitar, the air has suddenly become blurred with smudges. At first I think them as spots from my own dizziness; they have a certain rhythm, and I accompany them as in a trance. Then I see them stream from outside my window, cut through the air of my room, smash into the wall and crumble into angular fragments.

                Stones.

                One volleys from the air beyond my window into the ceiling, crashing stunted and falls to my feet in a heap of flint and sand – _I want to let go all the pain I felt so long _– another rock fumbles off the walls, but more than physical pain comes the sharp injury of the taunting that ensues – _erase all the pain till it's gone_ – and with greatest effort I silence it.

                "Be gone, filthy human! Filth of the universe!"

                "Trash of the country! Useless rabble!"

                "Sing your chants and curses somewhere else! Where the sun don't shine!"

                "Send your curses upon yourself, vermin!" 

                I remember the vile, hateful voices; I pick up Arhleus and Glein among the rabble of their number. A stone steaks vertically in an curve from the window and slams into my right cheek – _erase all the pain till it's gone – _my fingers stumble a little, and the only one note is wasted. In the shadow of the window I can vaguely sketch their outlines: erect and proud in their stature, bent and crooked inflexibly as they hurl the stones to the target girl by her window. 

                The hail of stones persists as the I repeat the fearsome, familiar chorus, moving away from the reach of their missiles, each one laced with a thousand curses of those who despise the way I am. _And I wonder, _is this what we played for in our performance back in Zechaat – a storm of applause and the accompanying threat of death and the eventual hail (of stones)?  

                I strum the final lines, my fingers entering the phase of their sliding silence. The stones, too, reduce their onslaught as intensely as they had begun, and I'm left with the echoes and the ringing aftermath of the song that would take all my desires, and those of everyone's, to a place of retreat. A place of hope, that is above all other hopes, where the music can flood without restraint from my hands. A place – anywhere - _somewhere I belong._

Written by shelter 


	11. Ronin

**10. Ronin**

A/N: _I'm having my holidays now, and despite sessions of hockey training three times a week, a family vacation to Japan, a church youth camp for five days and SATs on December 6th, it's still almost one whole month of free time and late mornings. I'm determined to finish this story by the Chinese New Year (January 2004); if I meet my target, at least I'll get the satisfaction of a job finished cleanly._

_                This is a rather long chapter. Some complications arose when I tried to introduce the crucial scene in the chapter. I get the feeling sometimes I'm being seriously too descriptive, too metaphorical in certain ways. Those who do read, please comment on that, because - if not - I'll be trying to perfect it into poetry. If so, then just appreciate the effort._

I remember seeing the magistrate's men outside the bakery on the chilly day.

                Solbrecht weather is as vile as unkempt sores: it lacks all sense of order. The time of the End of the Year is approaching, a time of feasts and rejoicing, yet the weather shows no acknowledgement of such a duty. Last time, the End of the Year was overwhelmed with storm and rain, drizzling unashamedly from dawn till eventide. This year no rain falls, neither are the flagstones polished shimmering with the morning or evening dew. The sun has dug through the season's clouds of the imaginary autumn and has continued, for hours each day, to solely occupy a sky deep maroon with the planet's former bruises. Bruises I have felt.  

                On the day of my errands with Ershed the sky began its languishing early, and when I had arisen its rays of dead warmth were blazing through the louvered windows that Father put in place to restore the broken glass ones. The air felt parched dry, devoid of any moisture characteristic of this time of the year, and upon my first step outside into the open, it had stung my face with a cold as acrid as the fiery wisp of a sharpened fire.

                In Zyjushem there has never been any need for heavy clothing – at least as far back as I can remember. When I was little rain sometimes drifted into sleet, and sleet into hail, but never frost. So when I put on an extra windbreaker, making sure it could wrap my usually bare arms smug, I sauntered down the street to the bakery where Ershed and Tamar would be waiting. 

                Tamar had, in a manner hyperbolic of an understatement, greeted me with a sharp rise in her eyebrows: that stands for surprise. She had taken my hand in greeting, released it, and then placed it to her heart, as have all of her generation done since Earth was still in existence. I spoke to her of the weather, but Tamar neatly shrugs in response, her frail shoulders rising, stirring the ends of her singed hair that come from her working in the bakery. She reckons it is simply the weather.

                "It's an omen, a sign of the most imminent kind," Ershed told me the moment I had entered the bakery. He waved his finger out at the dried-out sun filling the streets with scorch and the frosted panes and the icy straggling breath we gave out, "I have seen enough premonitions for disaster, and this certainly is a sign, a sign from the heavens of the coming suffering of the times."

                "_Sii, it's just poor weather that's all," Tamar had retorted._

                "And you – learn to respect your elders!" Ershed had reproached in return.

                When Ershed had toddled away into the murk of the bakery's inner chamber, I recall whispering to Tamar: "He's quite spiritual about such things, isn't he?"

                "Spiritual or not, he's the reason I'm not dead." And I remembered Tamar's residence on New Marrakech, her postponement to return because of Ershed needing help at the bakery.

                Mother sometimes fails to realise I'm not like Michelle, whose twin loves of making cuisine and learning make her the ideal daughter. I've tried cooking, even with Aunt Cheng reprimanding me at every little instruction, but the truth is I cannot cook to save my life. As Ershed ordered us to knead the dough, then put them in the machine which somehow turns them into pastry. I stumble, the paste forcing its way through my fingernails and the paste of flour and water I somehow convert into a yellow fluid that spills across the table at accident. 

                Ershed shows us an example: he cups water from the basin into his crafted hands, rains it down on the flour and paste, before shaping it into a perfect mould of dough. Swiftly he puts them all into a container, pitted with holes just large enough for his little handicrafts of dough, and shoves the tray into the machine. It's different from the one that makes bread; the machine has a certain dull veneer of shine to it, as if it was the most polished thing in the bakery with enough gloss to fade into lacklustre. The oven for bread is a yawning mouth cut into an old machine flaking with rust; inside, flickers a flame that does not cease nor lose its power to inflame. 

                The entire bakery, I notice, is likewise buried under a veneer of old flour – and the centuries of traditions Ershed has retained until this day.

                "The dough must be the right size and flexibility if you want a good pastry," Ershed instructs me, listlessly, "if there's too much water the pastry will turn soggy. Too little and it will shrivel into charred ash."  

                Tamar grins, and my second attempt to mix, knead and perfect the round little ball of dough fails. I flatten the dough into a disc so sharp that I have to peel it, in layers, from the table. Ershed observes with disappointed disapproval, and he clears his throat to let me know of my error. 

                "Flatten, do… but not till it becomes thin to the point of invisibility!" he chastises, "here let me do it for you."

                But as he completes the craft he has started, my eyes fix themselves on something more unacceptable; something much more unfitting.

                A cluster of aliens assembles outside the house and shop of Rusty and Spike, its awnings drawn and metal grilles shut to signify its being closed fore the day. I recognize out of them: a tall, robust frame, with arms that grasp onto stretches of muscle and an expression raw and tight with clenched scrutiny. He is Juniraxian, and no doubt related to Arhelus. The leader of the group, his face a spread of sentiment unreadable, raps impatiently on the grilles with his knuckles, and I pick out the signet of the magistrate on the ring on his third arm. His other arms occupy themselves with a chain.

                "What is that?" Tamar questions.

                I cease my futile crafting of pastry, and scurry across the street to the gang besieging the pilots' house, Tamar close behind me. A mob of aliens, from the outer neighbourhood, mass at the edge of the square at the end of the street where the road is, desperate for any interesting fuss we might provide. But I worry. And the signet of the magistrate worries me even more. I look to the houses along the street for assistance. Not even Doug stands watch over the scene. The street is dead.

                Finally, the pilots' father, Edward Johnson, pulls open his door to face the troublemakers. The aliens stiffen as if in anticipation. The metal grilles divide them, like shroud of safety for Edward.

                "You are Mr. Edward Johnson, human refugee, are you not?" the leader asks, as if he is unable to discern the obvious. 

                "I am indeed," Edward replies, "What is your business here? I'm afraid I'm closed for the week. Come another day…"

                The leader's face reforms itself into another, neutral tone, but his voice continues to threaten with authority. "Under orders from the magistrate of Zyjushem himself, you are to be taken to the reformatory for questioning… nothing serious, I guarantee you, just a short talk with the officials." 

                I register the metaphors hiding in the alien's words. "I have done nothing wrong!" Edward protests. "I have paid my tax, for goodness' sake! I have…"

                "Mr. Johnson," the leader acknowledges, amending his talkative frankness into cold command, "these are the magistrate's orders. Failure to comply would mean you will make it permissible for us to coerce you out of house."

                The metal grille between Edward and the aliens now becomes a barrier, isolating him from both help and himself. The Juniraxian has his hands on the grille, his arms slowly beginning to harden, an look of ill upon his face. Edward stares wildly towards the brash official, then out into the street, sweeping it in all directions and, eventually, noticing us. I have seen that stare. In Zechaat. On that rainy evening when the aliens launched themselves upon a friend by my side…

                With a manner of complete defeat, he gives in. The moment he unlocks the metal grille, swinging it open to meet his captors, the leader seizes his hands, and strings the chain across them; the Juniraxian hinders all other protest. Disgusted I run towards the gang and Edward.

                "He hasn't done anything wrong!" I yell at them, before I can control myself. "You have no right to take him!"

                "Push off, human," one of them sneers. His arm flings itself across to stop me, but I parry it. I move another step closer, eyes keeping focus on the chain that they wring around Edward's hands.  

                A blow stuns me, slamming into my lower jaw. The pain provides an extra sting. I fall. My vision recedes to the gaps in the flagstones on the pavement for a second – then recovers into consciousness. The presence of the aliens I regain feeling. I scramble to my feet. The jaw throbs. The Juniraxian leers over me. Tamar provides the divide now, as the grille was between Edward and the aliens.

                "Back off!" she warns the burly creature, with one hand stretched out before her, and the other helping me back up to my fearlessness. 

                "The chain is a precaution," the leader examines me, "but if you attempt anything else, human, I'll make it a necessity on you. Come on, let's go."

                The Juniraxian continues to face us, his motions and stance heavy with confrontation. I do not shirk away from his stare, overconfident as they slip from his wide eyes rimmed with his clenched face. Tamar prevents me from giving into assault – and holds him away lest I foolishly do so.

                "I know you, you're the human girl Arhelus talks about," he grunts, framing the sickened smirk of his humour. He reaches out to touch me. I jerk away. "And you're as feisty as he said you were."

                He turns away, and leaves me red with the shame of his words. His voice continues to echo inside, turning up all the heaps of disgrace of my own race – of my own self. The buildings corner me with their unearthly expressions of question. The sky make me realise I am myself. A human. A human. A human…

                He lumbers away across the square, where his gang has passed. The mob cheer, as if Edward were a prisoner, and then they close in to taunt him. Tamar moves aside, spits on the ground where the Juniraxian had stood. "Dog," she curses. "Inhuman dog."

                I have heard that so often, I don't even know what it means anymore.

The next morning, the sun touches the buildings, then succumbs to shadow. The word spreads that Edward is gone.

                "Dead," says Spike, helplessly sifting through the houses of all those along the street for a sympathy he cannot accept. "They say he died during the questioning because he was sick."

                Mother and Aunt Cheng listen, aghast with shock. Edward liked our spices. 

                "So they took his body away and burned it."

                "Is Rusty taking it well? I haven't seen him all morning," I ask.

                "In the house. Staring at the window facing the city. Hasn't said a single word all morning since the news came."

                Spike turns back down the street, his elbow flickers to his face; I know he doesn't want to be seen crying.

                "The shop. Who's going to run the shop?" Aunt Cheng asks.

                "Oh, the shop? Rusty will, I guess. I mean, we have to go on making a living, don't we? I'll do the cargo hauling alone. Greening had said he could take over the entire business permanently if needed."

                Trust Keane Greening to think of business now!           

                "He's going to D'Armara soon, that Mr. Greening, says that the situation on Solbrecht's becoming rather unstable since the riots," Spike tells us. I can sense a hint of displeasure in his voice. "The Solbrecht chancellor can't guarantee safety for any human businesses on the planet anymore. After New Marrakech, the Drej's silence is unnerving everyone."

                "Fine for Mr. Greening then," Mother exclaims, "running away like a coward."

                Spike turns to her, shoulders slightly hunched. "Well, at least he won't die."

When the afternoon allows the sun to shine for a short time, even though unconvincingly dull, I accompany Spike to mortuary beyond the square, at the far side of the road that leads to the Zyjushem markets and city hall. They must have sent his father's remains over there.

                "My Dad always wanted to be buried on a planet, after earth…" Spike informs me with great difficulty, "but, at least he'll know he can fulfill this last wish."

                Iain agrees to follow us. Both Mother and Aunt Cheng had protested against my being in the company of Spike, and added that anywhere beyond the square would be unsafe for any human. Father just managed to overrule them, especially since Rusty was still staring out the window in the shop-house that he had helped build with Spike and his father.

                The street empties into the square, and the orderly flagstones transform themselves into the blank concrete surface that marks the end of our little neighbourhood. Passing Keane Greening's apartment to the left and Vanessa's beside it, the bare, shattered concrete finishes at the road, spilling into the dusty asphalt and hardened ash, falling into the murky districts of everything non-human. Mother used to erect a wall, visible only by her discipline, to prevent us from crossing over into this land of hostility when I was much younger. I blink. Such memories of threat spar with those of serene gardens and friendly neighbours on earth. _I cannot separate the two experiences._

                I blink again. It is not the moment to think of such things.

We cross the lonely frontier of the square, our faces as blank and bare as the mien of concrete beneath, forfeiting the protection the square and the warped recollections it gives us.

                The street that immediately follows the square stretches down east towards the City Hall and up north winding through the outskirts of Zyjushem, the neatly arrayed disorder before us. Tenements litter the sides of the twisted road; warily I notice their eyes – not their windows – but within them. I dare not count, though I know there are sure to be thousands, some lighted and dangerous, others narrowed with suspicion. But this I know: all of them are strangers'. Spike, in the lead, does not shirk to the left, or to the right, but has his vision on the road. I marvel at his constancy.   

                The streets are now unknown and alien. The mutilated, scarred tenements bear names I don't know, faces that I can't identify. The city encloses, with its unfamiliarity, and isolates; suddenly, again, I am myself. I am not them. Iain is himself, and Spike is the human at the head of the pack. The tenements and the squat, gaunt shops that rest by their sides leer at us. All things that held friendship with my identity have surrendered into the confusion of the alien. There is no humanity, save what is walking towards the mortuary and in the confines of the road, where I am myself. 

                The voices of the tenements murmur among their doors and windows and stairwells – a slurred, secretive sound that has no meaning, but plenty of intention. They rail against myself, the only self conscious enough to notice. The dead trees and blackened paths are the marks of their words, of the poverty and neglect from which every sentiment is begotten.

                Amidst the tall tenements and their voices and eyes, the mortuary stands, as a temporary bystander, at the next twist of the road, flanked by deep, shadowy alleys that gouge closer to the soul of the eye and the voice. One of its windows has been shattered; the outside bin is overflowing and split by its sides. Its walls are like the others: faceless, numb stone. A potted plant in the counter is withered and dead.

                Inside the air tightens and the stench of nothingness overwhelms. A Solbrecht native, diligent with his four arms in sorting out the papers and files, dominates the counter. The white doors to the other rooms queue in the passageway, hiding grief behind their innocent décor. 

                The clerk notices us. "What do you want?" he demands.

                Spike leans forward. "I'm here to collect the remains of my father, Edward Johnson."

                He studies us, taking in the full measure of the three humans waiting on him. He glances at the records in all his hands. "Nope, no one by that name sent here."

                "They should've. The reformatory has a duty to fulfill by letting my dead father's remains be collected," Spike says, on the edge of departing from the controlled restraint I saw earlier. "Check your papers again."

                "I've checked," he says after another glance. "Your father's remains haven't been shipped here."

                "Let me see that then," Spike orders, but the clerk moves out of reach. "Let me see it for myself!"

The clerk's eyes narrow and he counters, "I hear they chuck the remains of criminals down into recycling. You'd be better checking the bin outside…"

                For that vengeful second, the rage in Spike – cautioned and barricaded since this morning – flashes into freedom, lunging him at the clerk from across the counter. Just before he seizes one of the stunned clerk's arms, I evade his flying right arm, the force collected carefully in my hands. Iain seizes him by the other.

                "Spike, calm down! Don't let him provoke you…" Iain pleads.

                I push against Spike's struggling frame, and with Iain's strength on the other side constraining him, he topples and tumbles to the ground with Iain. His first reaction is to blather; the fall somehow cures him, as if it was the stun needed to exhaust his anger. Iain helps him to his feet.

                "Hey, Spike, are you alright?" I ask. 

                "Yeah I'm…"

                "Good. Don't listen to what they say," Iain calms him, while throwing a glimpse at the clerk. "Your father was a good man…"

                At the mention of it, Spike begins to cry. He sniffs hard, before blinking back the tears dripping from his eyes. He turns away, and uncontrolled, he cries.

                "It's alright, Spike," I add. 

                "Come on, let's get him out of here." Iain decides.

                But the brawl with the clerk seems to have been more obvious and prominent than we thought. A crowd masses outside the mortuary, and upon our exiting it, they confront us, taunting, leering, foul. At the sight of Spike in tears they strengthen themselves and move to surround us. I see Arhleus and Glein among them. 

                "Cry for your parents, human. You're their vile spawn!"

                "He deserved the death he got. The scum!"

                My jaw moves to clench itself with a flicker of courage, bracing myself against the insults; I prepare to run lest it comes to blows. Iain's face is hardened into self-control; I can see that he is preventing himself from lashing out like Spike did.

                Then Arhleus says something that cuts me deeper than anything else.

                "Mourning for the dead, human?" he sneers. "I hear he bled from every orifice after they were finished with him. 

                "That's what awaits you, human!"

                I halt. The aliens' laughter doesn't sting, it cuts, like a guitar string on an unhealed wound, slicing the rottenness of the surface into the blood boiling beneath. The similar spirit of rage that possessed Spike I suddenly inherit and, upon will, the strength seeps into my hands and impulse crowds my vision. Before I realise it, the wrath reaches for the clogged bin, hurling it at the mob of aliens in the decreasing distance with a force of insanity. It crashes in the very thick of them; and they all recoil, too shocked by the speed at which things take place.

                But their shock wears off, giving way to their malicious intent and crazed fury. 

                "Kill the human!" one of them shouts.

                "Hoi! Stay where you are!" 

                I fling my head in the direction of the voice: an unmistakably human voice – a girl's voice – half-hoping to see Vanessa with Rusty or Tamar or someone else. Instead my eyes fall upon a girl I haven't seen before. Her stature is lithe – her stance proves it – her shoulders square against a face that stares through her eyes, secure and steady. Then I realise she and I are of the same race. I notice her hair is a mixture of purple and solid black that can only mark the drifters.

                I don't know why she's alone in such a place. She seems – alien herself.

                "Get away from them," she warns. 

We move over to her side, lending strength to her presence.

                "You don't threaten us, human," Glein scoffs, "don't forget, you're on our territory now."

                His words force the truth back into the already dead fantasy of rage and revenge. I know only too well that Glein is right. What good are four humans against a mob?

                She moves forward cautiously, measuring defiance in each step closer. I narrow my eyes in disbelief; I notice Spike and Iain, while in position to run, are torn between pulling her back. I agree. This is foolish. _This is suicidal._

                Glein advances out to confront her. Both human and Akrennian face each other, trying to find a reason to strike out. What chance does she think she have with Glein? _She is but human._

                But things speed into action without warning. Glein moves in to strike her – darting, she swings her foot as his already curved right ankle – curved with the weight of his strike. He buckles. The mob charges at her. Before I can hardly take in everything, she bounds into me, nearly knocking me over. My right arm grasps to her diving shoulder for assistance. Iain's scream overrides all the chaos.

                "RUN!"

                Our bodies deflect off each other in confusion; blindly I seize whatever my hands can lay hold on and drag it along in my first few fumbling steps. The fumble straightens into posture, and posture quickens into speed. When I next open my eyes, there is a heavy, omnipresent din, half-garbled with curses, half-sweaty with grunting. It echoes in the background. Like bass. Then I hear my feet: the slapping of soles against the flagstones, the rapid pacing of limbs so fast that wind beats upon them. Like treble.

                I become aware of the tenements, above the static air that hits me flat on the face. They spring up from ahead, and their dormant eyes and voices awaken with clamour and explosion. Spike twists to dodge a rock; it drifts through the air, and crumbles in a mixture of yells, fragments and running. The girl darts ahead of me, and as I quicken my running, I realise I'm the last. Soon, the tenements, like walls on both edges of an endless, futile road, taper off into squat shapes blurred by speed. My eyes, misty with adrenaline, hang on to Iain's sprinting figure, guiding us away into the square. 

                Halting, the air becomes tranquil again, as I eagerly take it in with my panting.

                "We can't lead them – back to the street," Iain says, without breaking his stride. "They'll wreck – our houses."

                "The cemetery!" exclaims Spike. "We can – lose them… in the cemetery."

                As I throw up all my adrenaline to begin the dash, the undertone of yells and curses deepens. Iain flings himself aside, adjusting his sprinting towards the small mud path at the far end of the square. I have been this way few times. Scrambling down the path, the grass smothers the sound of my soles on flagstone, converting them into the stirring of the trees on a windy day.    

                Here the path ends. Grass and weeds fill my breathing now, and all around me my running acknowledges the mounds of earth and the still tombstone. Soon the grass is so thick that it overshadows my eyes. No one ventures in this deep. A hand tugs me into the darkness. Iain's hand. The grass deadening all sounds except my own, Iain draws me to the ground, into a thicket so dense that I can hardly notice the coil of branches where I enter. 

                There is no sound, save our panting.

                "I don't think they'll find us here," Iain says, his voice croaking under his gasps.

                "I don't think anyone's come this far in," I reply. "We must be in another neighbourhood, the one behind the square."

                "No one will find us… I think we're quite safe here."

                As the darkness reflects off Iain's face, his eyes catch the scarce light. Brushing a lock of hair from my face, his hands entwine in mine, and all I can see are his eyes, circles of black against the darkness around us. He moves towards me, until his breath warms my face; stirring, his lips touch mine, and as we fall my nostrils are filled with the scent of wet dew on the grass in the morning.

_The scene in the bakery is not a detailed, approved method of making bread or pastry of any sort. I'm just recalling what I can remember from watching how a man at my neighbourhood market does pastry. He makes sweetened pastries called butterflies that he sells for fifty cents each._

_Certain styles of imagery and impressionism during the walk through the tenements were ideas inferred from William McIlvanney's Laidlaw._

_Written by shelter_


	12. Echoes

**11. Echoes**

**A/n: **_Well, I'm back, after 6 months of absence and college. Six months of crazy classes, a whole bunch of new people,, a hockey season and a lack of writing. Now that I'm having a June break (nothing but home and studying to do), I think it's finally my duty to make good on my oath to finish this once and for all, to complete where I first began 2 years ago. I take it that I write in a bit of a weird way, but bear with me 'cause I'm always trying to sound like how it was back when I started. And I'm just trying to show that the TAE page on this site isn't dead and buried._** Is anyone else out there?**__

I part the curtains of the thicket. The heavy, stinging scent of twisted grass blades and fresh water on the leaves catches me for a moment, and dims my eyes to the opening ahead where Iain and I entered. I can scarcely tell how long we spent under the thicket, under the absence of night or day or the how Spike and the other girl fared. Insects speak into my ears; Iain moves silently on all fours from behind, though no sound stirs outside the curved wall of grass and branches to alert us. Finding a current of wind ahead, I creep towards it, one hand on the grass that leans towards me, pulling it open with a noisy rustle.

                I crawl onto the ground, the air alive around me. Turning up, starlight bursts onto my face.

                In the thick, overgrowth of scrub, I can barely make out the way we came from, much less the fractured iron gate that marks the entrance. Lights, remote and vague, bounce off my eyes to give me enough sight to see the tombstones and their mounds, cratered by looters and mobs. The tombstones, crooked, huddle together as if whispering about our presence; they interrupt the grey outline of the cemetery of unkempt, tall grass with their peeking, sentinel heads. 

                A crash of grass echoes in the darkness; Iain and I spin around – halting, prepared to charge – the grass creases and cracks – but it is only Spike and the girl that saved us. Their faces still bear the weariness of our earlier sprint.

                "Where the hell did you two go?" Spike directs his words at us. "Those aliens were screaming so loud that we thought they'd caught you."

                The girl lowers her head.

                "And when we heard them digging something we thought they were burying you alive."

                "We were hiding," I reply, "in the thicket. Sorry, Spike, we couldn't hear anything."

                I turn to the girl, her head still lowered and her hands dangling free at her sides. There is unusual air about her. She seems alien herself, as if this was her first time on soil, breathing the free air. I respect her for the divine recklessness that she saved us with, and the insane calm that most certainly must be hypocritical of her nature. Her presence itself decorates the scrub and tombstones with a sort of spiritual dimness.

                I turn to her. "So what's your story?"

                She brushes one of her bangs from her eyes, a glance of cream against a streak of maroon. I try not to notice her eyes, which are as almonds, clear and serene with a sparkling gloss. I am sure Iain sees them, much less Spike.

                But she speaks with an invisible undertone that hides pain.

                "I'm Akima, if you must know, I was actually coming away from a refueling station when I heard the brawl. I'm with another human friend and a ship, which got quite thrashed up since we crashed landed here a few days ago. We're trying to get off Solbrecht," she explains, with a nervous caution.

                "If you're trying to, I can help. My brother and do cargo runs every fortnight, you can stay at either of our places for a few more days," Spike offers.

                "Sorry – Spike, is it?" she gestures, and he nods. "I've found a way, thanks. A Mantrin friend of mine and myself have a plot going. And it's at somebody's expense, so I can't risk your families for it."

                "Who're you ripping off?" I ask, callously.

                "Golbus."

                A sharp pause comes between us. Now that certainly _is_ risk.

                "Are you insane?" Iain cuts in.

                Akima gives him an intimate grin of total disregard. I hold back a cringe. "He gave my friend a nasty beating, so this is my version of revenge, I guess."

                "They'll be looking for you," I add, "and they won't stop until you're dead."

                She ignores the threat. "What I'm seeking is worth dying for anyway."

                "And that is?" I ask, skeptically.

                "Something that has to do with the Titan Project."

                Another pause. I shift from disbelief to awe and back to doubt within those seconds before Akima interrupts: "Look, I'm no adventurer or renegade or anything that humans only have their hope for. I bound to a debt: that being a human."

                "You're with the Titan Project?" Spike asks, failing to conceal his admiration.

                "Come off it! I'm not," Akima responds. "But my friend's father was, and we need to get off Solbrecht before Golbus or anyone else finds out. That's how I ended up at the station in your city… is there anyone that can help me back to Zechaat?"

                "Hardly," Iain tells her. "The magistrate and his officers have some share with that filth of a crime lord. Best way out is the way in."               

                All of us jump as the scrub rustles – we realise it's only the wind, rushing through the leaves and the grass that darkens our way and slices the light. The stirring leaves sing a soft hymn of evening, as the twilight sky, half-cluttered with stars, reminds me that in spite of everything, I am still myself. As much a human as I am a creature. Akima gives me this questioning look, as the four of us observe a devotional pause while standing around.

                "Are there many humans in this city?" she asks.

                "About three families, and twenty others who came here by themselves," I say, "there are many more drifters though, and I can tell you, they lead more predictable lives."

                "Yes. I suppose they do," she says, very softly.

                "Come on, best we get going home, or my Dad will be worried sick, with all the din that mob made."

                "And you can stay at my place," I tell Akima, "my Aunt would enjoy having another girl to fuss over."

                Iain leads, with Spike casting a swift glance at Akima, and then following. I gesture for Akima to go ahead, but she shakes her head.

                "I didn't want to say it in front of them, since I thought it would seem a bit inappropriate," she whispers, "but things have gotten worse in Zechaat if you must know. The humans have fled to the cities around the capital for fear of the mob. I've heard what they do and… it's ones like us who are at the greatest peril when the mob has their way." 

                I blush scarlet, but Akima doesn't seem to notice.

                "You heard me earlier, I'm on a mission, that's got to do with the Titan Project. Everyone will be combing the streets for me; Golbus will want to hunt me down. I'm sorry – but I won't follow you to your home. I can't put you and your family in such peril."

                It's my turn to ignore her. "Stop talking bullshit. You're coming."

                "If they see me walk in there, they'll burn your house down," she protests.

                "And if you walk out there, the mob will tear you to ribbons when they catch you."

                "Don't worry about me," she turns away for a second, and the purple locks flail across her eyes, barricading them like bars, as the wind disturbs them. "I'll be safe as long as I can get to the station."

                "Sure, and when you fulfill your mission, please come back to Zyjushem so we can be the first to proclaim your glories with heralding honours and songs," I counter her sarcastically. "You're mighty stubborn for a drifter."

                "Am I that obvious?" she grins again, moving forward through the grass.

                The grass shortens, and with careful alertness Akima and I wander into the field of churned earth and pitted graves unsettled by the mob. Iain and Spike ease their way to the cemetery gate, crumbling and swollen with cracks; the streets are quiet and unnerving. Lights blink from two directions, but only one draws us: the scant light bulb swinging, pendulum-like, in the wind, on the back wall of the Perez household.

                "This is where I say farewell then," Akima signals.

                "Don't be insane," I admonish her. I try to seize her hand but she evades my grasp. "Maybe if you stop trying to be the hero, so many madmen won't be after you."

                "Whatever, but I will remember what you said."           

                "And that is?"

                "I'll remember you, even if I complete what I've got to do," Akima acknowledges. "You keep those two in your good hands, alright?" She waves, and before I can reply, she darts off into the cover of the tall shadows the city's lights cast. I watch her halt, and finally fade away into the darkness of the road beyond. The last glimpse I catch is the light descending down her face, and the jerk of her bangs as the wind rushes past her running.

                "Where the heck is she going?" Iain mouths to me. The shock registers well in his face, even in the half-light.

                I saunter up to him and a bewildered Spike. "Her business is her burden," I say to them. "And it's her responsibility. Come on, I'm going home before anything else chases is into another              thicket."

In time, fragments of Akima's presence echo in the passing weeks. Rumours of a fierce gunfight in Zechaat and a defeated Golbus amassing his syndicates for some kind of war reach Zyjushem; I hear talk, from Rusty, whose state of mind has returned to his reckless composure and whose business is with the big trading firms in the capital. He speaks to us animatedly, swearing that a human pair and some other rebellious creature are responsible for inverting the peaceful chaos of the capital. But, as always, his stories always take on a severe weight. A week after Akima's blending into the shadows near the square, Rusty adds that business is poor. The traders fear the unreliability of human cargo haulers since the riots. Humans are afraid for their homes and livelihoods and lives in the capital. Golbus and his mob have sacked houses in search for accomplices. A mob publicly mutilated a young human girl to warn humans of the consequences of revolt.                   

And ships off the edge of the system have been intercepted by Drej.                     

                To all these stories Spike, Iain and myself listen with an air of half-curiosity and unsure hope. We rest together with the knowledge, with the secret, that the cause of all this upheaval has safely exited Solbrecht and is on the way to fulfilling her mission. And suddenly we have hope that this mission could succeed. Vanessa notices my slight change in attitude, and jokes about my new interest in traveller gossip that I once spoke of as trash for the uninformed. But Spike and Iain agree with me that we should not tell anyone else about Akima; not even Vanessa or Tamar, much less our parents. While deep inside there is a flicker of hope that we had partaken in something beyond our selves, it remains overcast by a firmament of suspicion and dread at the coming days.

                These coming days soon bring the dismay they promise. Another human is arrested, Alvin tells us gravely one morning. They came in at the break of dawn when I was preparing the herbs, and took him away in chains and broke the windows and splashed black paint on his door, he describes it to me and my dramatic parents hours later. The victim was John Gerrer. He was a seldom seen man who worked the sewers behind the neighbourhood. The black paint, like a pentagram of graffiti on his door, has its ominous symbolism: filth of the earth, scum of the wastrel, human, soon to killed. I know this black paint. It means pestilence. It means death.

                The days of the invisible Solbrecht winter arrive glossy with blackness.

                The previous dry weather turns hostile, with winds scarring the houses, dominating the narrow avenue with its ungainly presence. As the sun masks itself with the clouds and the sunshine eventually distils into sleet and rain, I cannot believe that once again the day of plenty is coming. The mood among the members of the neighbourhood remains entrenched with fear, but a sense of long-awaited elation and festivity threatens to undermine it. Michelle tries to draw attention to the herbs in the garden: rosemary and basil stretching up their stems, withered aniseed and cloves and the occasional chili. 

                "I see them, I really do," I tell her, "tell Mother, she's the one doing the cooking."

                But on that day the aliens subvert our preparations, and they come to take us.

                Plucking my guitar softly upstairs, I hear the scour of feet against the slippery, sandy flagstones downstairs. People always walk past my window, and I hardly care. But I hear the feet, a series of steps, made by a group moving fast without concern for the inundated pathway. I rush to the window, heavily confident of what I know I will see. I feel my entire frame numb itself when I pick out the jingle of their clanging chain. From the window I trace their walk; I see five of them, including the bulky Juniraxian, dragging the chain along the flagstones. They pass my door, and I can but only swallow my anxiety into relief. Then my senses numb themselves with self-mistrust at my eyes: the pack of officials halt before Iain's doorstep.

                "Oh shit," I utter, realising the shared knowledge Iain and I possess like a wrapped present, never to be opened. And I am running to the door.               

                But before I can release the lock, Mother seizes me shoulders.

                "No… Iris, no!" she mouths, overdramatic with fear. "If they see you out there. They will take you with them ah!"

                I wrestle free. "That's Iain they're rounding up," I whisper, "and I'm not going to let them just take him away like that."

                In between the pathetic pause that comes between Mother and I, I hear the officials yell out a warning: come out or else.

"But Iris, it is not good to get involved…"

                "If somebody helped Uncle Cheng on the colony, would he still be dead now?" I snap, my emotions coaxing a fireplace aflame with uncertain embers. I realise, slowly, the weight of what I have said.

                Mother slashes her palm across my face. I reel but my back catches support on the door. The bolt and catch of the door spear into my lower back; I wince.

                "Don't YOU DARE show me any disrespect!" she shakes her voice at me, her face redder than the flush of excess Christmas wine. "You know very well that…"

                I find the lock, and twist it. The door swerves into the street and, leaning against it, I fall, sideways onto the flagstones. Mother glances mortified, as the door strains on its hinges, with the clatter of reindeer's hoofs on roof tiles, creating the attention-seeking din she was hoping not to create. I pick myself up. The Juniraxian confronts me.

                "Hello, hello," he snarls," isn't it the feisty little guitar girl that Arhleus can't stop talking about."

                "What do you want with them?" I demand.

                He throws me a look of domineering loathing, trying to edge my resolve with his posture and glare. "We want them for questioning, nothing less," he growls.

                I look beyond him to the other officials. They apprehend Iain and his brother, throwing them around with their many arms, but Mr. Niel is nowhere in sight. They wrench the rails of the door free, and as a parting token, one of them splays black paint over the doorstep and it streaks unfulfilled down onto the flagstones in excess. They measure the chain and Iain, repulsed, recoils.

                One of them gives him a blow that catches him on his right temple.

                "HEY! Watch it!" I yell. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

                "Get her away!" comes the order.

                As I stride forward, arms half raised, the Juniraxian advances without warning, and his outstretched arm slams spitefully across my chest. I reel but my back steadies – then he presses ahead, his steps threatening to knock me over – I fail to correct myself – and land sidelong onto the flagstones for the second time.

                "Bring them away!"

                The chains, fastened, play to a hideous, wordless carol as they move with Iain and his brother away. Even before Iain can slouch to lock his own disgrace out of his bonds, they hurry him on. She casts a quick look at me; his face, for the first time ever, his unreadable. With mine on the verge of collapsing, I try to look brave; I try to tell him with my eyes that I'll be waiting when he is supposed to return after their questioning. Please, oh please let him see my courage. He turns away, and I find myself glancing at the back of his listless, petrified younger brother – and the official that drags him by the chain. 

                The Juniraxian lumbers over me, towering, not careful about his steps as he – again – threatens to stomp over me with his feet. Damn him! As he passes me, grounded but cleanly safe from any attack, he leaves a gift of his spittle; it hangs precariously from his mouth for a moment – and then sweeps across my face like a tattoo.

                "Dog! Filthy bastard!" I hear Tamar cry, as she runs to me.

                I wipe the spittle, viscous and heavy, from my face with my shirtsleeves. I am silenced by myself, by the breath that breathes through myself, by the blood that warms through myself, by my human self. I am undesirably human – which is why I am crimson with shame…

                "Come on, get up," Tamar encourages me, dragging me to my feet. "We'll get back at them, someday, I promise."        

                I can only stare at the blackened doorway. Iain's scent, his hollow gaze, lighter than my own shame, is the anxiety beneath me; the sweat shine of the sun on his swollen temples clouds my eyes and I long for him to be near, to comfort me from his being taken away.

                The black paint floods the creaks between the flagstones, meandering softly down the coldness of the entire street.

When I learn that Mr. Niel, like Keane Greening, has left Zyjushem, my shame absorbs itself and runs into resentment. Where he has gone, neither will any of my parents tell me. They tell me not to worry – without a flicker of any emotion, with the numb disregard of the fate of all those the officials have hauled away for questioning. I shadow them in my rage, a nervous silence that waits for the night to bring me back Iain and his brother. I cannot imagine how Iain would have felt: with the self-elegy of the sound of the chain muttering at his doorstep, the aliens leading him away in the open day; having no father, no mother, no friend, no neighbour – would he hold it against me for my lack of courage?

                I lean on Spike, his frame scrambled by the insecure light my wall traps. Tamar veils her eyes from the light, while Vanessa has my permission to keep a quiet vigil on the ledge of my room's open window. Spike tells of Rusty wanting to leave.

                "He says that it was always his ambition to turn this part-time cargo hauling into something solid," Spike says, his voice light and his accent the contour of the walls. "Now that there's nothing to hold him Zyjushem, he wants to leave. Wants to start hauling among the drifters where he'll know it'll be more –"

                He stops.

                "Profitable," completes Vanessa. The limp night breeze carries her disgust over easily.

                "Yes, I know. He won't say – but he wants to get off Solbretch and escape all this mess. I know him, he won't tell anyone. He won't accept it himself until it happens. And yeah, Vanessa, he's a bloody coward. But he's my brother. What the shit am I supposed to do?"

                "Tell the coward to stand up for himself."

                I let them speak. I am losing the fluid of my heart. And in its place myself blends into a statue, a stone set in a frozen longing. I had seen Spike's and Vanessa's looks when they came: they know that nothing but Iain's return will smelt me from this suspension. And I know that they know. And they know that I know they know. And we speak, aimlessly, hoping to voice from the futile something slightly less grave.

                I love them.

                "They will not let any human go," Tamar speaks, her voice weary from traveling all across the room. "The magistrate has barred anyone from coming down this street, and he continues to say that he cannot guarantee our safety anymore – the hypocrite – whenever he saw us as prosperity he never failed to trade – and now that everything's collapsing he sides with those scum from Golbus.

                "My father thinks that if we present a gift to him he will ease our burdens. And everyone who has a stake in this street has agreed. They are going to present him the sword that my father has kept all these years in the family. He thinks the silver and ivory will convince them to purchase us some more safety."

                I mouth these words over in my head again. I picture Ershed's sword. The curved silver blade, the ivory handle and scabbard. The sword Ershed said belonged to the finest and fiercest generation of holy warriors Earth ever had.

                I cannot take in the irony.

                "Doug Whiteman isn't going down like that. He disapproves of Ershed and Alvin's peaceful motives," Vanessa informs us. "He's an ex-soldier. Fought the Drej as fighter pilot when they attacked Earth, he did. He's planning a rebellion. And he says he's got weapons – and supporters. A small cache of them stored in his home up there. Jeffery's one of them. He proclaims without fear. Says that it's fear that's keeping us down."

                "The fools," I hear Tamar curse under her breath. "They're only going to quicken their own deaths by proclaiming a rebellion. And how do you think the city officials are going to treat us once they learn we are scheming to usurp them?"     

                "Tamar's right," Spike answers, and he straightens himself, as if to rival Vanessa's frowning gaze. "I hope you're not thinking of joining them."

                "That's none of your business."

                "It is if you get killed with those warmongers," Tamar attacks.

                "You and your father have always been concerned about peace. Peace to the point that it weakens your heads," I see Tamar's eyes narrow and Spike hesitate as Vanessa persists. "At least spare some thought for those who have fought and given their blood for your survival. At least try to see that their motives are pure and for everyone's good…"

                "It's not everyone's good if we all die because of them!" Tamar replies, her face bearing the full force of the light. It gleams.

                "You know what – forget it! Forget I said anything about Doug and Jeff and what they've sworn me not to tell anyone else," Vanessa balances tremendously on the ledge. "Who said you'd even understand in the first place? You and your father can give that shit magistrate your lives and hearts and souls and you'll still be –"

                The moment that she stops, Vanessa leans out the window.

                I see her face concentrated in seeking – something.

                And she looks up to me. "Iris…."

                I blur Spike and Tamar's questions and the room and the landing and the stairs and my warning parents and the door and the fumbling latch and the night wind and the dead houses until I see Iain's face.

                "I told them nothing," he mutters dreamily.

                I take in the full measure of his face and his eyes. Eyes shaping the night and my face into a dream? I watch him as he limps into my arms, his left leg loose and out of place. He lets out a muffled gasp of pain and stumbles – I lean him against the walls of nobody's house, trying to steady him. I grip his blood-smeared palms and swallow his panting. As I put my arm around his shoulder to help him in, I hear Spike and Tamar approaching. A lock of Iain's hair falls into my face. The smell is familiar. I do not wish to move again – ever.

Written by shelter (08.06)

_Akima's inclusion is a bit of a deviation from Titan A.E – Akima's Story by Kevin Richardson & Rebecca Moresta. Thought it would be nice to have a real hero in here anyway. _


	13. Last Days

**12. Last Days**

**_A/N_**_: final chapter's here! It's been pretty exhausting trying to finish this, but I've done it! After 2 long years. The sense of completion isn't that satisfying. But I hope that I'd help motivate others to keep writing for this genre. I've promised myself I'll stop writing such dreary & depressive stories, and try to move onto something realistic. Enlisting for the Police in 12 April, so I've got a damn lot of time to be real. ENJOY:_

When the short season of Christmas wanes into the usual days again, I have this wronged hope that everything will return to normal. And I hold onto the thought so insanely even as everything else disputes with me.

The air is heavy with the afterglow of misery. Rain, frosty and hostile, cuts open the mornings and fills the evenings with a pall of wet blackness, as if the entire Solbrecht was the procession of a lonely funeral. From my window, the tombstone buildings that scatter beyond the square are wasted grey with rain and wind, now a mauling choke blasting down narrow streets and licking the ashen remains of late night fires against their charred corners. The sun is but a smudge of confused red-yellow amongst the grey. The city is rotten with shadows.

I keep the windows closed now. On Mother's orders. Her faint fear of mobs hurling stones and slurs through inviting windows and doors is a remedy to by disrespect, a sharp wound to my rushing out to help Iain on two occasions where I was meant only to help with my eyes. I question her: won't stones through glass be worse? She has no answer. She tells me to stop asking. She yells at me to obey.

But which mob would even take the trouble to wreck our houses anyway? The magistrate has stationed sentries on both ends of the street, where the square meets the road and at the edge of the street that precedes our. No human is to leave this area, he orders. He says our safety is at risk if we do. And since then, no one has ventured into the street – and neither has anyone walked out of it. I feel the house has become a cell. The street a dungeon. The city a cemetery.

I pluck at my guitar. The wire, not leashed in a plug, lashes across my knee as I lean back onto the bed to pluck from this sourness something even more miserable. I try not to think of Iain and his brother, battered and thrashed, under Aunt Cheng's care in their home. I try not to think – but it eclipses my music. I force my fingers onto the bass string, its metal wire rasps the skin under my fingernails; I wish I could have been there with Iain. When they hit him. So I could have a reason to feel vengeful.

The sound of a lifeless bass and a swollen despair make me want to play.

Instead to delay the impulse I know will come, I flip my guitar on its side, giving the meek light a moment to skim the black surface now artistic with scratches. My reflection is drained, without texture. I could smear myself with more self-strangling; I let the guitar down, pausing, in the valley of my stomach.

I can tell that this house will not protect me for long. Neither will the calm of the new Solbrecht year. Not even the guitar reclining defiantly, its strings unmoved with the excitement of the rage of its former songs. There is a sense of loss. That is all that I can feel right now – a feeling of completion – but to what end? It feels like one of the guitar solos I play: it will end, it must end, but where, when, how?

I cannot answer. I clasp the guitar by its neck and rush to see Iain.

I suspect that Aunt Cheng disapproves of my presence with Iain as he recovers – while being with a pack of youngsters up to no good – and carrying _weapons_ – and making a lot of noise – and… Not that I think she is grumbles too much, but I know she will not stop me. She lacks Mother's choking discipline and, after living with drifters for years, I know she subtly – even though all her upbringing yells against it – understands.

"Iris, ah, remember not to provoke anyone now, okay? These are difficult times, you know," she fires the words at us. But they are stale phrases with blanks for warnings.

"Yes, auntie," I say, with a voice waxed to sound filial.

Vanessa has yet to come with all the drums yet, so Iain and I tune in her absence. Iain surprises me. Really. Twelve hours after getting hits by city officials and he still can sit up straight. He is such a totem of ridiculous theatricality sometimes. His left arm is still limp as if wrung like a sheet of wet laundry, but he rests the neck of his bass on his shoulder, and tunes with one hand plodding through the purring sounds of bass. Tamar and Spike, our supportive audience, watch us with cat-like eyes, catching our every move.

When Vanessa arrives we move to the stone garden at the back of Iain's house. It had been a garden before, but the previous owners had heard that humans were moving in, so they filled the plot with cement so Iain and his brothers and his Father could not grow food to feed themselves. The pavement, old and screened with cracks, is a flooring of dead grass pushing themselves through the cracks in the cement. The garden ends where a dead crumbling wall separates this neighbourhood from the next. The ground there is littered with stones the mob beyond the wall hurls over in hate or fun or both.

I drag the amp to the garden, and deftly, I stuff the plug into it. The batteries flare, and the hum of defiance starts to freeze the surroundings with an echo eager for expansion. We do this on purpose. We know those beyond will be able to hear us. Just beyond the sheet of wall I can almost hear the pulses of the tenements, faded, but as alive in its dead routine as ever. For once, I do not seem afraid of practicing out in the open air; we've done it once. We are doing it again. It may be our last.

Iain finishes with the mike. It rests, head down, like an injured prisoner tugging on the wire that runs a maze round to the cells. Our last cells. Vanessa steadies the bulk of the bass drum, lands it the right side up against her full set of cymbals and snares. Whenever Spike's around she doesn't seem to mind the trouble of all that mass.

I pick the first note. My guitar, for once, is tuned and eager at its beginning note. Waiting, I flip through the scrapbooks of songs, the soul of souls and the symbols of survival. The chords look familiar; it isn't as if I've had time to practice.

"Why don't you try this one?" I tell Iain and Vanessa.

"Ahhh… something new," Iain mutters, "but it's got all those funny chords in it. Are you sure you can manage?"

The arrogant sucker! I say nothing and pick out a soft intro.

Vanessa's eyebrows nearly touch the sky, and Iain, like he did in Zechaat, puts on one of his most ornately insane grins. I don't know what he's waiting for. His part's supposed to kick in after mine. I play the intro again. But still his eyes are stuck to my fingers, now getting redder with restraint, and he will not play.

Then, I jam my fingers onto the strings, and the intro comes out five times louder than it's supposed to. I see Spike and Tamar flinch. Half enraged but half swayed, I play. Iain's crooked smile turns into a metaphor for approval. "Now that's it."

Now the intro gets into motion. And I pound my raging fingers down for the first chords that give into the strumming. Vanessa joins in. Iain motivates the music with an undertone of bass edgy and tense but so, so fast and irresponsible. I catch a glimpse of Spike and Tamar, clapping and yelling in a vacuum. No sound dares to penetrate our song. The amps relay the message, and with the downbeat that Iain is the master of provision for – and his voice personified of poetry – the creak of sound wallows into the music.

_What's happened to you? _I have heard this song before and have never known who's the guy being addressed. Now that Iain's singing it, stanza by slinky stanza, I think it's me. _Something deep inside you is probably to blame. _It could be Vanessa though, but as she plays, I hear the screams of the snares ride all the way up to Iain's voice and slam them into the bass that the two of them conjure.

Why am I jealous?

Iain's voice is waiting on the chorus. I nod down, my eyes feeding the ground with a patient vision, and do not desire to upward glance ever again. I can feel the music groping me down my neck, and melting into my head, blitzing a kind of teardrop from the cellars of my eyes. My hands drain the strings, and rasp as the chorus falls into my conscience as blood on the ground. _It's never the same on the way down._ I understand, yeah, I truly do. _How does it feel when your feet finally hit the ground? _Iain lifts that strain for a second longer, and I find myself bent over in seeking myself. You again? I thought you're dead and gone. Depart from me. Your identity is screwed. Yeah I said… _and the sandcastles you built are falling down…_

I turn to Iain. Finding my eyes on his flexed feet. He didn't give me any time to think. I press my fingers clean into the wire of strings, and in confusion, blast my head back, shaking it to the bass that creeps up my still correct chords coughing comfortable with self-strangulation. Vanessa forces the snare and a sliver of cymbals into a second union that shall never be parted, as my trembling treble slams on the wall that bass and solo dominate. _Got you fingers burned by burning candles at both ends. _I smear my face with sweat of my moment, myself insane, blood full of disregard, clutching the souls of myself that are frothy with music, worshipped in self-vengeance.

Here it comes again. Without impulse or control, I blurt out with Iain's voice in a duet. _It's never the same on the way down. _I struggle to keep up with his rich defiance, but find mine helplessly drowning in it. I realise that I am still myself. Yet the music propels myself back into the surface of the atmosphere stalking with music. _When all of your bridges are burned down. _I'm treading on it, and as it screams beneath my feet I fumble and stare at the ground again. _And the sandcastles you built are falling down…_

As Iain reels to take in a breath, he speeds towards the bridge with a lower note in his singing. _So now I question what you're gonna do_. I match Vanessa's bass, and two on the snare with a pass down, thumb straight as a leftover on the twitching strings close to numbing. _Now that everything's gone up with you_.

I pause for the smallest frame of a second; my fingers are close to the point of being overwhelmed by myself as Iain illustrates the bridge with Vanessa tapping hypocrite solemn. _You believe the shit you say is true. _I am waiting for revenge. I am waiting for my guitar solo – _But everybody's on to you – _I crease my fingers into strumming – my other hand a blur as it tries to hang onto the ledges of the lofty chords that I generate with myself – I take no consideration for Iain's voice that shrouds my guitar, for I myself sway the music, and the chords mingle into the final chorus –

And as it comes – I rip the strings into plucking, desperate to turn myself into the song – within the bounds of my solo I make sure Iain cannot breach my retort – but Iain voices out his groans of finality, a voice knowing that he has to stop – but I am entrenched in my own adrenaline – unsure _when all of your bridges are burned down – _I lift my guitar to crown the collapse of the song – _and the sandcastles you built are falling down… _- Vanessa rakes an intersection of bass and snare – but I have the final show, and my fingers blunder through their final torture of wire before the flare of the guitar on a hangover from an overdose overrides everything else –

When I look up, I think I am resting my eyes upon a mirage. No stones. But there's a din that sounds like applause, breaking up from all around us and hitting the walls and overtaking the stretched out wake of our finished guitars. Spike and Tamar are there; their faces shine the way every good audience does when they hear us. There's a pack of kids behind them. One of them I know is Tamar's youngest brother. They have their eyebrows straddling the highest crest of her eyes in a gesture I could have mistaken for awe. But they are clapping.

I look to Iain. The bass guitar poised at a treacherous angle of repose down his neck and shoulders, he gives them a half-bow, the grin on his face streamlined like a guitar string with furnished pride. Vanessa and I follow. The applause, now sounding to me less of compliment and more of gratitude, joins from its scattering to a firm chorus again.

There must be some symbolic feature with those kids turning up to watch us. I just cannot make it out.

But I guess it's something good.

The aftermath of the short jam ebbs in my head as the days number themselves with another round of sore weather. The street is deserted. Several humans trying to leave were told to return to their homes. Later officials picked all of them up. The sentries now have rifles, stashed to their belts with lighter protocol; they haunt the intersections on both ends, even through the sore-throated wind and the rheumy rain.

But what I cannot see from my locked window are the bounds of a greater shadow. There are more riots in Zechaat. I hear they have spread, like the spreading scabs of woe, to distant D'armara. The doors are closing, and the days will soon come, the wind tells me, when they will recognise humans no more. And just beyond the walls that keep me human, Doug's cigarette flames up in the midst of the wounded night. It is a light. But one so noxious and flickering that it cannot be seen as a hope.

I can tell the days are falling down on us.

The day after, the sickened rains subside, and the crude hammering on the door drawls away at my conscious mind. Aliens, all Father's business partners, rail in their loud voices, demanding their pledges for money they have borrowed from Father be returned to them at once – without payment. They quarrel. I crush my teeth together, enamel on my persistent gums, and prepare myself for a fight as I lie on my bed trying to ignore the threats. All day they come. Some want to close their accounts; others want to buy out Father's exchange.

When finally I press through my teeth enough courage to venture downstairs, the scene is banal with a deep seizure of bathos. The door open, the aliens come in and go as they please, trespassing into the house smugly, smirking, retrieving their pledges from Father's locked cupboard. The lock has not been forced open. Father dwarfs the anticlimax by the sidelines. An official from the city council dominates the door.

I look to Father. He cannot look me in the face.

Finally as I had expected it, they come for us.

But they are stubborn in taking everyone in the street along with us. The warning knocks on the door arrived first. Then they forced their way in. I had been upstairs at the time; from my position half-curled over tuning my guitar I heard the crescent wave of echo as the front door swung at full into the wall. An unfinished dirge of smashing glass. Mother's hyperbolic scream. Another shout from down in the street. And more breaking glass.

I see him coming up the stairs. A towering, skull-capped creature, having tentacles in the place of muscular arms. I know Michelle and Liwei are downstairs, so then they must have come for me. Calmly, as if all the time in the world had been reserved for this climax, he nudges his head to screen the rooms. When he notices my door ajar, he bounds towards it. And as I get up, he flashes the muzzle of the rifle at me.

"Pack your things now!" he orders tactlessly. "And get downstairs."

I delay. He arms the gun and blasts a round clear through the window. The streak of pulse yells like an animal with no teeth, and wondrously leaps through the glass, crumbling into flakes that jingle and rasp all around me. The smell that roams in place of the sound fires through the insides of my nose with resentment. I hurry. I stuff the guitar into its bag and at gunpoint lead my entourage downstairs. He tries to push me with his other outstretched arm but I duck underneath it. He growls.

Downstairs everyone is huddled under two more of those armed sentries. Probably they're mercenaries. From the open door I can see them herding people away, and beyond that someone talking back, before receiving a crack with that nasty rifle which comes across as a tread on the path.

"Get out, now!" the one who brought me down orders us. "Out the door! And follow the other humans!"

I step out the door first. The first thing I see isn't another sentry, or a captive human lending me lead. But a splash of earth, metal and alien blood – a Juniraxian reels over, parted by a slice down to his shoulder. The door, Doug Whiteman's, had been rigged. The sentries see the blood; they open fire at the door, at the windows, at any opening into the house. The street is laced with pulses and non-animal yells clattering into stone and glass.

I hurry down the street – guitar over my head – accidentally knock someone over – get in the way of a sentry rushing to join the action; there's another blast, this time right in the centre of the street – this sentry wasn't as bulky as a Juniraxian – and all I catch is a flashing, a wild scramble of eyes before the blast sweeps him into the air and away into the clouds. I fall back. There's blood on the pavement – I'm not sure whose.

But by the time I'm on my feet, the sentries have stormed the house. More shots, a tumble of shouts, then screams – a wild, shrieking of a gutted animal, inhuman, twisted – the crowd of neighbours huddles behind me – the pulses continue – deeply-resonating, ending in a high-pitched din. Climax – a lower boom of return fire – finally a harsh, screwed squeal – sounds like a hog prised open and cleaned. Shouts of surrender. The sentries' threats.

The rebellion is over, just like that. Doug's house, the balcony where he once watched sentinel-like with his cigarettes, has become a slaughterhouse. The sentries haul a carcass out from the door, it is a mass of moulted meat, clotted with strings of deep blood fibre. I can't even recognise who it is. Two sentries appear, one wounded, but not badly. They order out the animals who were cornered. I see Vanessa.

"What the hell?"

Her eyes contract. The sentry threatens me not to move towards her – I don't see any wound, any cut, but she is swabbed in a humid blood shower. Not hers.

The sentries lead the rebels another way, up the street.

I worry for her now.

"What're you humans staring at?" one of them blasts us with orders. "Follow the head! Down the street now!"

I try to delay, with the weight of the guitar stroking my weaker hand. I don't see Iain or Tamar or Spike anywhere. Father goes ahead, and Michelle, shaken, almost in a trance, follows. I bring up the rear, as the sentries bay us pass eager crowds and curious natives to a container by the river.

Speckled lamps, like clumps of dying fireflies, set the dark belly of the container alight as they shut the door and lock us in.

"Maybe one of the officials will come to free us," we muse in the dark.

"Maybe the magistrate's secretary will…"

"Maybe the magistrate himself…"

"Maybe even the chancellor…"

Hopes and rumours get bolder and more boisterous by the hour – or has it been a day? I can't tell. Within the iron atmosphere of this former hold time is forbidden to penetrate or speak to us of our fate. The rusted whorls of ventilators, pounded into the ceiling, radiate a dull drone, a simple hum, lost in the dimness. There is plenty of space. But the place is starting to feel stuffy.

I start to fear for Vanessa.

But Iain stands out among everyone. He is not worried, neither is he resigned to everything. I can almost feel his mood beating through his open, clasped hand which gropes for mine in the dark. Without turning to him, I can read his mind. An unstable but excited hopelessness.

I gently pluck my noiseless guitar. Music won't do any good now, not when I don't have any amps or mikes or even a tuner. Instead, I wonder why the first thing I seized was this guitar. Now, _why?_ Michelle has the skateboard I got back for her from Zechaat. I think of Gail. But I pick the thinnest steel string on my guitar, and unknowingly rest my other hand on a chord. A-minor.

Now I'm wishing I could play.

Iain didn't bring anything. He didn't even get ordered out. Once he saw the humans being herded down the street, he calmly went out to join them. Then we met just before going into this place. In the place of his lack of hope is his unconditional silence. He hasn't spoken a word since we came in.

"What're you thinking about?" I ask.

He turns his face over to me. A dry smile. "What about a song?"

"With no music?"

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" he leans forward, and for the first time since we got taken by the officials, I'm uncertain whether I've really read his mood. He flashes his arms, in a half-flex. His fingers creak with a stretch. "How about Higher?"

I try to flash a grin. "You never tire of that song, don't you?"

I turn my attention to my guitar. Without an amp, the music would be terribly sour and soft. I try my best to put together a quiet intro; disgusted by the softness of a loud song, but determined nonetheless, I strum out a tune on sapped steel strings.

Just listening to Iain's – half-eaten, half-smooth – is redemption in itself. I nearly miss a note trying to keep his voice in my head. It's so soft yet, Michelle who's just nearby, picks it up, and turns to listen. As he begins on the chorus, I stop short – usually this is where the bass comes in with Vanessa's drums, but we don't have them now. Only when Iain's voice subsides do I know my cue for the rasping solo stunt. But it comes out all crooked and weak. Iain smiles.

I just complete the next stanza and ready myself for the second chorus, when the entire container shakes, and the doors finally pull themselves open, to reveal a warp of the brightest light I've ever see. But my eyes slowly adjust. I see the same sentries, with their weapons; they gesture us outside hurriedly. As we delay several step in, slamming their weapons on the container walls in a clash of metal, a striking noise that echoes the container.

"GET OUT! GET OUT!" they order. "And hurry up!"

I delay again. But the guard has his meatloaf hands on me, pulling me to my feet, brushing my sides with the harshness of a warden's brutality. Iain and I are the last, yet I'm still clutching the guitar. As if it'll be of any use now. The door with its supreme heavenly light, blasting away all the darkness in my eyes, looms.

I step out.

I believe I've stepped out into a fair, like those in Zechaat, with the din of merchandise and the clutter of a hundred things going on at once – the barter of our lives with slave traders – "that's a pretty thing isn't she?" – "you fool, she wouldn't last a day in the mines" – the wail of the scoffers – laughs and sneers – the eyes of the traders of blood over the belongings that we carry. But over and above it all, is the music – the carnival of noise – the magistrate himself – mouthing a petition, the proclamation of our crimes and offences to the noble citizens of the city of Zyjushem, state and planet Solbrecht, under law number whatsoever. No one pays attention. Except me and Iain, our eyes fingering the joyous atmosphere to rest upon the magistrate and the curved sword we gave him.

"Screw you!" Iain yells. "And your bloody petition!"

We are the rear of the procession, as the dancing and the clowns surround us. I feel like I'm back in Zechaat, and in the eyes of each alien, I believe Gail will appear any moment now to me. The crowd pelts us with gifts, showers of their blessings, and the guard, who is completely indifferent to the scramble of scrapbook colour bursting before his eyes, forces us on.

We enter into where the crowd encircles us. Here it is. It has to be. The essence, the very spirit of the carnival! The climax of the performance and the resolution of all this clowning around and acting. I catch a glimpse of a hundred fragmented vignettes of motion going on at once. I see Alvin – he's slumped across the ground – he's not smiling although his admirers festoon him with Solbrecht flowers and alien spices – his head – I remember it closer than it was to his body – and his shoulders not at such a crazy angle. I see Tamar – the colour of her lips extends all over her face – a pale blood-red seeping out from her lips – the guard pushes her to the ground – now her face is the colour of mud – then the volley of shots leaves her face with no colour at all – the crowd applauds in appreciation of the drama she provides.

Then black.

Then colour again. A brutal pain in the back of my head. Where's my guitar – it's still in my hands. Then I realise who I'm seeing. Vanessa! I was so worried…

I see Vanessa now – the frozen word on the frozen face now frozen in suspension – she's been waxed dry – her skin is smooth and it radiates – I touch the flat bloodiness of her chest – the roughness is peculiar – even where the blade entered – then down to the white of her thighs and legs – white stripped of skin and blood and flesh – pale death white -

The crowd's wild now. They're waiting for the glorious finale, the final stand of the performing humans and their last act. This is my cue. This is it. I force myself to my feet just as someone seizes my hair. Iain is on his feet too, and on his cue – no it's my turn to start, my fingers plug the chords for the chorus of Higher. One last time, Iain. Let's give them one they won't forget. I slam my fingers down on the chords as Iain seems to bounce to the music, flung into ecstasy by all the guards opening fire at once. But I continue playing – a knob disturbs my temple – I motion to the final chord – then blackness.

I'm taken into the music.


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

_The Lui family_: killed for treason in the year of the constellation, 10045, in Zyjushem, city of Solbrecht. They were refugees from earth. Arrived 1 month after it was destroyed. Sources say they lived in a single-storey dwelling on the outskirts of the human city of Malacca, state of Malaysia.

_Iris Lui: _avid musician, historian of earth's musical sources, especially that of the rock and metal genre. One of the few who could play the instrument known to others as a guitar of the electrical subtype. Introduced to Akima Kunimoto and is believed to have aided in her escape to Fauldro. Her guitar preserved in the museum of earth's instruments. Commended by pioneer Tucker in his opening speech of the museum. Died 3 weeks before the founding of New Earth. Body never found.

_Higher, Freedom Fighter, Are You Ready, Never Die, Beautiful_ are songs played by Creed.

_Somewhere I belong_ played by Linkin Park.

_Falling Down_ played by Staind.

Thanks to _Tigrin & Rys_ for sustaining my interest in Titan A.E. This seems to be the only type of fanfiction I can safely enjoy writing, and yes, though I twist it here and there too much, I'd really love to see more writers on the page. I know the site's a corpse, but just keep posting, whoever's out there. And thanks for reading my stuff!


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